6

 

 

Eve tried Mira from the car, hit her v-mail. “Suspect has a partner, younger, possibly a teen, gender unknown. Full report to follow, but think about it.”

She clicked off, tried Feeney next. “Peabody, tag the commander’s office. I need ten minutes—fifteen,” she corrected, “asap. Feeney,” she continued when his basset-hound face came on screen. “I’m on my way to Central, I need a meet.”

“On the LDSK?”

“Got the nest, got a description. I want to bounce this off you.” “Come ahead and bounce. I’ll work you in.”

“Appreciate it. Later.”

“The commander’s on a ’link conference, but I stressed the urgency. He can see you in about forty.”

“That works. You head back to the bullpen, brief Jenkinson and Reineke. I may need to pull them in again. I’ll send you my record on the interviews at the hotel. Start writing the report. If I’m not back, go deeper on the ID the suspect used. There may be a reason he used that name. Dig under the credit card.”

“I’ve got it. Why Feeney?”

“He was in the Urbans, and he’s worked LDSKs before.” And, Eve thought, he trained me.

When she hit a traffic snag—somebody had wiped out on the slippery street, and was now arguing heatedly with the cabdriver he’d slid into—she thought: Fuck it. Slapped on the sirens, and went in hot.

“Call that mess in before there’s bloodshed.” “Already done.”

As she turned toward Central, Eve glanced over. She’d trained Peabody. Something else to think about.

She squealed into her parking spot in Central’s garage, quickstepped to the elevator.

“You think another strike’s coming,” Peabody said. “That’s why the rush.”

“I think another strike’s coming. And if I’m wrong on that, they’ve had a day to poof. We need to catch up.”

As the elevator filled with cops, she hopped off when Peabody did, took the glide the rest of the way up to EDD.

Entering the odd cop world of color and movement, she spotted McNab—hard to miss in a fluorescent red-and-yellow shirt flopping over neon green baggies as he stood, skinny hips tick-tocking to his own strange beat. His screen was exploding with color and weird symbols.

She dodged around a female practically skipping across the room wearing a fuzzy pink sweater with an animated poodle doing backflips over her chest.

Eve beelined for the relative sanity of Feeney’s office.

He stood working a large swipe screen two handed. His hips didn’t bop—thank Christ—and he wore one of his shit-brown suits, already wrinkled, a darker shit-brown tie askew over a saggy beige shirt.

His silver-threaded ginger hair sproinged up from his comfortably worn face as if he’d scrubbed it with a wire brush. The room smelled of his candied almonds and coffee.

When he grunted at her, she stepped in.

“Can I close this door? All that color makes me dizzy.”

He signaled her to go ahead and, when the door shut, wagged a thumb toward his AutoChef. “Coffee’s under kale-and-carrot smoothie.”

“Good choice.” Eve programmed two, waited until Feeney nodded at the screen and stepped back.

“What ya got, kid?”

“The nest, a description. He made those strikes from Second Avenue, Feeney.”

Eyebrows lifted. He let out a whistle as he dropped behind his desk. “That’s some juice.”

“He’s got a partner, except . . . The second suspect is young, undetermined gender. Possibly a teenager. I’ll know more when Yancy finishes with the wit. Adult suspect, probably early fifties.”

“Doesn’t sound like a partner.”

“Exactly. Sounds like a trainee. Maybe the wit’s off, but he comes off rock solid. When he says sixteen tops, I lean toward a kid. Who takes a kid into something like this unless he’s molding said kid?”

As he thought about it, Feeney snagged a few almonds out of a lopsided bowl. “Any chance the kid’s a hostage?”

“Doesn’t feel like it. This wit? He’d have noticed if the kid came in under duress. They checked into the hotel together, had already requested that particular room. Stayed the night, stayed through the morning. That’s planning and patience. And it’s lying in wait. So I ask myself: Why this kid? You took me.”

Sipping coffee, Feeney nodded. “You had juice.” “I was green.”

“You never had much green on you. I saw potential, guts, a working brain—cop’s brain. Maybe a little bit of me there, back in the day. And you wanted Homicide. You took Peabody,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, and thinking on that. I can’t say I saw any me in her, but I saw potential, and that working cop brain. I figured, give her a shot at Homicide—because she wanted it—and try her out as my aide. Then it fit, that’s all. We fit.”

“She’s got you in her. A sunnier outlook, and that Free-Ager base, but she doesn’t quit. And it’s not just the job matters. It’s the victim. You saw some of that, or you might’ve put her into a cube in Homicide. You wouldn’t have set yourself up to train her.”

“Yeah. I guess. Yeah. So there’s maybe some of the adult in the kid. The potential to kill. You took me, I took Peabody—and I gave Baxter Trueheart—but there’s more than the potential, all three trainees were already cops.”

With a nod, Feeney gulped some coffee. “You’re wondering if the kid’s already a killer.”

“You don’t pick an apprentice out of the air. You don’t take them on because they’re handy. Where’d they find each other? The adult suspect has to have police or military training, almost has to have

been in uniform. So, do you pick this kid off the street, out of some war zone?”

“There’s another choice.”

“I know it. They’re related. Father and son, uncle, older brother, distant fricking cousins. I get the description I can run it through Missing Persons, see if anyone’s looking for a teenager. Let’s say they’re connected, why train to kill? This doesn’t come off as a pro— none of the three victims had anything worth the hire. And there are a lot less visible ways to do a training exercise if you’re heading up a fricking assassin’s school. This comes off personal.”

“A lot easier ways to kill for personal reasons.” “Damn right.”

“Unless this is what you do.” Companionably, Feeney nudged the wobbly bowl toward her. “Not an assassin for hire, but a sniper— police or military. That’s where you’re leaning anyway.”

On a long breath, Eve nodded. It helped to have him lean where she did. “Yeah, that’s where. You take on the trainee because you want him to share what you do, you want to give him something maybe. You want to see something of you in him. The age difference . . .”

“More like you and me.” Feeney nodded. “I never worked an LDSK with a partner, or with a trainee, but I’d say the trainee has to show a

—what’s it—propensity for the work, and some skill, and the same cold blood. You can’t teach the cold blood, Dallas. It’s just got to be there.”

And again, he helped to hear him say what muttered in her mind. “How’d they pick and train snipers during the Urbans?”

“Same way they do now, I’d say. You’ve got to have the skill, the control. You have to be able to see a human being as a target. You don’t take that target until you get the green, and when you do get the green, you don’t hesitate.”

“Whoever made those strikes didn’t hesitate,” Eve said. “And they won’t hesitate when they get the green again.”

—

orking out the oral report in her head, Eve headed to Commander Whitney’s office. Whitney’s admin gave her a nod, held up one finger

W

to signal for her to wait. Then tapped her ear-link.

“Lieutenant Dallas, Commander. Yes, sir. Go right in, Lieutenant.”

He sat behind his desk, a big man with broad shoulders that carried the weight of command. His wide dark face was set in sober lines as he watched Eve come in.

“I’ve kept you out of this morning’s media conference, as you were in the field. Tell me you have something.”

“I have the nest, I have a description of two suspects, and Detective Yancy is working with the witness.”

Whitney sat back. “That’s more than something. Details.” She gave them all, quickly, to the point, and on her feet.

“A teenage apprentice,” Whitney murmured. “It wouldn’t be the first time. The D.C. snipers,” he told her. “Early twenty-first century. The Ozarks snipers, 2030 to ’31. Brothers, the younger barely thirteen when they began.”

Eve made a mental note to research both cases.

“When we have the sketches, we’ll release them, and this time you’ll need to participate in the media conference. Stand by while I contact Kyung. We want to set this up carefully.”

She wanted to work, wanted her board, wanted to think it through, but she stood, as ordered, and waited.

W

—

hile Eve waited, so did the apprentice. Mixed with the cold blood was a hot thread of anticipation. This time it would be

different. This time the knowledge of how it felt, how that power pumped from finger to target colored all.

The flop smelled of piss and roaches. But it didn’t matter. The sight line straight up Broadway to Times Square was unobstructed. The thinning sleet, even the occasional sky tram winging by didn’t distract.

“I have the target.”

The trainer nodded, picking out the target himself through a scope. “You have the green. Take your time. Take the target out.”

“I want more than three this time. I can do six. I want six.” “Speed and accuracy, remember. Three is enough.”

“It sets a pattern, and I can take six.”

After a moment, the trainer lowered the glasses. “Four. Don’t argue. Do the job. Argue, we abort.”

Pleased, the apprentice watched the people thronging the streets of Times Square, watched them walk and gawk, snap their pictures, run their videos, haul their bags of worthless souvenirs.

And began to do the job.

Officer Kevin Russo patrolled with his friend and fellow cop, Sheridon Jacobs. They’d just grabbed a couple of loaded dogs off a cart on their break, and his sat warm in his belly.

He liked his beat—always something happening, always something to see. Of course, he’d only been assigned to Times Square the last four months, but he didn’t see it getting old anytime soon.

“There’s Grabby Larry,” he said to Jacobs as he watched the aging street thief casing the tourists. “Guess we’d better run him off.”

“He’s showing the miles.” Jacobs shook her head. “There ought to be a retirement home for old street thieves. Guy has to be pushing the century mark.”

“I think he passed it a few years ago. Jesus, he doesn’t even see us coming.”

They didn’t hurry. Grabby Larry wasn’t as nimble as he’d been in his prime; and the week before, his mark had beat him to the ground with her purse—the one he’d hoped to steal.

Russo started to grin at the memory, then today’s mark—a woman of about seventy, with a bright red purse dangling from her arm— dropped like a stone.

“Ah, shit, call the MTs, Sherry.” As Russo darted forward, a kid on an airboard in a small pack of kids on airboards went flying, took out a trio of pedestrians like bowling pins.

Russo saw blood bloom on the back of the kid’s bright blue jacket. “Get down! Down! Take cover.”

Before the first scream, the first realization of those around him, Russo pulled his weapon. He leaped toward the kid in hopes of shielding him from another strike. But the third hit Russo in the center of his forehead, a scant inch below the brim of his cap. Russo

was gone before he hit the ground, before the fourth body fell, and a fifth.

While chaos erupted blocks away, while screams ripped the air and tires squealed, the apprentice sat back, smiled up at the trainer.

“Five was a compromise.”

The trainer lowered the scope, aimed stern disapproval. But pride shone through it. “Pack it up. We’re done here.”

I

—

n Whitney’s office, Dallas’s communicator buzzed almost simultaneously with Whitney’s ’link signaling a breakthrough

communication.

“I’ll get back to you,” he told the media liaison. His eyes met Eve’s as they both answered.

“Dallas.”

“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Officer down, Broadway and Forty-Four. Multiple victims. Four confirmed dead. Wounded unverified.”

“Acknowledged. On my way. Sir.”

“We have a dead cop. I’m coming with you. Let’s move.”

She tagged Peabody on the way. “Garage. Now. We have another strike, Times Square. He got a cop.”

Automatically, Eve turned toward the glides. “They’re faster, sir.”

If anyone thought it odd the commander rushed to keep pace with her, weaving through bodies on the glides, they were discreet enough to keep it to sidelong looks—and most just quickly made a hole.

Halfway down, Whitney grabbed Eve’s arm. “Elevator. I’ll bypass from here.”

When Whitney muscled onto the jammed elevator, cops, not so discreetly, came to attention. And no one bitched—out loud—when he swiped his ID card and called for the garage.

“What level?” he snapped at Eve. “Level One.”

After ordering it, he glanced at her. “Your rank rates higher.” “I like Level One.”

“The way you like an office the size of a broom closet.”

“I guess. Yes, sir. Commander, it’s going to be mayhem.”

He pulled a black scarf out of the pocket of the coat he’d yanked on as they’d rushed out of his office. “I’ve dealt with mayhem.”

Eve decided to be discreet, and said nothing.

They shoved off the elevator into the echoing garage. One glance told Eve they’d beaten Peabody, and that gave Whitney time to survey her ride.

“What kind of vehicle is this, and why in hell don’t you have better?”

“It’s my personal vehicle, and better than it looks.” Quickly, she opened the locks, glancing back as she heard the elevator clump. “Take shotgun, sir.”

As he climbed in, she sent a warning stare toward Peabody. “Take the back. The commander’s riding with us.”

Eve slid behind the wheel. “Speed’s key. We’re going hot.”

As Eve turned on the engine, screamed into reverse, Peabody leaned forward and murmured toward Whitney’s ear, “Lock down your safety, sir. Trust me.”

Sirens blaring, Eve burst out of the garage, barely hesitating to make sure traffic had cleared, and zipped around knotted cars, hit vertical to take the turn north.

“What is this thing?” Whitney demanded.

“It’s a DLE, Commander,” Peabody told him, strapped in, gripping the seat with both hands. “It’s not even on the market yet.”

“When it is, I want one.”

So saying, he yanked out his ’link, made his first contact with Chief Tibble.

Eve blocked him out, zigging, zagging, leaping, and shoving her way through knots of traffic.

Multiple strikes on one of the busiest sectors of the city, the eternal party that was Times Square.

And a dead cop.

Mayhem would be putting it mildly.

She needed the scene secured, needed any potential wits quarantined and interviewed. She needed the dead protected, and the wounded, if any, out of harm’s way.

She’d expected another strike, but to have it hit under twenty-four hours from the first . . . A pattern, an agenda. Maybe a fricking mission.

Killers on a mission didn’t stop until they’d completed it. “Peabody, tag Yancy, put a fire under his ass. I need those

sketches. Get out of the fucking way! Do you hear the sirens?”

She went up, fast, skimmed over a couple of Rapid Cabs that appeared to be playing Chicken on Eighth.

As she’d suspected, when she nipped across Seventh, bulled onto Broadway, mayhem reigned.

A small platoon of uniforms fought to control hundreds. Panicked pedestrians, crazed vehicles, people with cameras and ’links trying to shove in for a better look, shopkeepers, waiters, street thieves— those seeing a bounty of profit in a small window of time.

The noise was amazing.

She stopped the car, flipped up her On Duty light, more to stop some overenthusiastic uniform from having it towed, and pushed clear.

“Commander . . . Sorry.”

She shoved into the melee, leaving Whitney to Peabody, grabbed a megaphone from some hapless uniform. Bellowed into it.

“Get these people back. Now! I want the barricades up. Three uniforms to each DB, now! You.” She grabbed another uniform by the coat sleeve. “Get this area blocked of any vehicular traffic other than official or emergency vehicles.”

“But, Lieutenant—”

“Screw the buts. Do it. And you—” She grabbed another screen, all but heaved it at another uniform. “Privacy screens for the DBs. Why the hell are they still out in the open? Contain this crowd, do your goddamn job, and do it now. Peabody!”

“Sir!”

“I want fifty uniforms, asap. I need some fucking crowd control.

Tag Morris. I want him on scene.”

She snagged a thief by the collar of his oversized overcoat, shook him hard enough to have wallets and bags raining onto the ground. “You motherfucker. Show some respect. Get your ass out of here, or I’ll personally see you rotting in a cage for the next twenty.”

Maybe it was panic, or maybe he was pissed his payday got cut short, but he took a swing at her. The move surprised her enough— for God’s sake, the place was swarming with cops—he actually glanced his fist off the side of her jaw.

More in fury than pain, she kneed him hard enough in the balls to flatten him, resisted—barely—kicking him for good measure. “Cuff him, haul his ass in. Now, fuck me, now! Are you cops or morons? Get me any and all security feeds on this area.”

She shoved her way toward the body of Officer Kevin Russo, and the clutch of uniforms surrounding it.

“Give me room, move back. Give me his name.”

“Officer Kevin Russo.” Jacobs fought back tears. “I was with him.

He’s my partner. I—”

“Stay. The rest of you clear this crowd. Secure the goddamn scene. Backup’s coming. Officer?”

“Jacobs. Sheridon Jacobs. We’d just come back from lunch break, sir. We were . . .” She took a hard breath, tried to steady herself. “We were moving toward a known street thief, and a woman went down— his mark went down. Hard and fast. I thought she’d fainted or had a medical issue. Then . . . it was a kid next. On an airboard. Kevin rushed toward him, shouting for people to take cover, to get down.

And he went down, sir. I saw the strike take him, in the head. I—I moved to assist, and everything went crazy. I’m sorry, sir, it all went crazy, and I—we—couldn’t control it. There weren’t enough of us to control it.”

“Which way was he facing?” “Sir?”

“Pull it together, Jacobs. Which way was your partner facing when he was hit?”

“South, I think, south. It was so fast, Lieutenant, it all happened so fast. People dropping, people running, screaming, knocking each other over, trampling on them, on the bodies. I called for assistance, but it was a stampede.”

“Okay. Stand by.” Eve started to call for her field kit when Peabody pushed it into her hand.

“Dallas,” Peabody said, gesturing.

Looking up, looking out, Eve saw that she was on every jumbo screen, coat flapping in the wind, face grim. The news ticker under her larger-than-life image, along with the dead cop at her feet, on the screen of One Times Square read:

 

LIEUTENANT EVE DALLAS, ON SCENE AT TIMES SQUARE MASSACRE.

 

“For fuck’s sake, kill that feed. Kill it!”

“I’m dealing with it.” Whitney, his ’link at his ear, stared at the screens. “Do what you need to do. I’m dealing with it.”

“He’s ID’d by his partner,” she told Peabody. “COD is pretty damn obvious. Get TOD. Make sure he gets a privacy curtain.”

With her kit in hand, she crouched by the teenager Officer Kevin Russo had tried to shield.

She knew at a glance he was no more than seventeen, and would never see eighteen.

“Victim is mixed-race male, ID’d as Nathaniel Foster Jarvits, age seventeen. Today. Happy goddamn birthday. TOD, thirteen-twenty- one. ME will determine COD, but on-scene observation indicates laser strike, mid-back. Nearly the same hit as Ellissa Wyman.” She paused. “Peabody, call the parents.”

“Dallas, TOD on Officer Russo is thirteen-twenty-one as well.”

Eve looked up, infuriated to see her own face still flashing on all the screens. No more respect than the street thief, she thought, then rose and moved to the next.

She didn’t look up at the screens again, didn’t rail that she still had to raise her voice to get her findings on record. Quick glances showed her extra uniforms were swarming in, barricades were going up, and arrests were being made—loudly—as some refused to move back or to stop their attempts to record the horror.

She’d worked her way to what Jacobs reported was the first victim when Whitney crouched beside her.

“Feed’s killed, but we can’t stop the media from playing it on bulletins.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your scene is now secured. This victim was with a friend who’s been treated for shock, and can be interviewed. The minor was airboarding with five friends. They are all secured for interview. One other victim was unaccompanied at the time of the assault. And we have a survivor.”

Her head whipped up. “A survivor?”

“Female. Office worker, but works downtown, doesn’t usually come up around here. The strike hit her mid-body, left side. She’d been transported by medicals, is going into surgery. It’s fifty-fifty, best.”

“That’s better odds than the other four. He won’t like not making five for five. That’ll piss him off. Sir, I need her under 24/7 protection

—”

“Already done, Lieutenant. I’m a cop, not a moron.” “Apologies, Commander.”

“No need. You pulled this together as quickly as anyone could.” He looked back toward the curtained body of their fellow officer. “I don’t think his partner’s misremembering. Officer Russo gave his life protecting and serving.”

“He may have been the target.” She kept talking even when Whitney’s eyes went hard. “Or the fourth vic, the advertising exec on his way to a lunch meeting. Not the kid—at least, it doesn’t play right now. The first vic was a tourist. But Officer Russo? He was assigned this beat, he could be expected to be here at this time and place.

The exec does work in the area, so maybe. None of the others, Commander. All the others were random hits. It’s the cop, that’s my lean. The cop who’s connected. I’m going to find out why and how. They don’t take one of ours and walk away. They don’t take some harmless kid on his damn birthday and walk away.”

She pushed to her feet. “Commander Whitney, I need to know everything there is to know about Officer Russo—personally and on the job. Everything. You could help with that. You could push that forward.”

“Consider it pushed.” His face stone, he looked toward the privacy curtain again, toward the uniforms ranged around it like an honor guard. “No, they don’t take one of ours, not like this, and walk away.”

He, too, got to his feet. “Whatever you need, manpower, OT, it’s yours.”

“To start? I don’t have time for a media conference.” “I’ll cover you.”

“I need Mira on tap.” “Done.”

“I could use Nadine Furst—for media spin, for research.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Tread carefully, but do what you feel needs doing. You’d be wise to coordinate with Kyung.”

She nodded, and thought: Not an asshole. “Roarke. If he’s available.”

“Without question, and with appreciation from the department.” “Commander, if I’m on track, and Officer Russo or one of the other

victims is connected to Michaelson—because it damn well has to be Michaelson, someway, somehow—this isn’t over. It can’t just be two. It’s some sort of mission, and their connection will connect with someone else. Someone will know one of the shooters. Someone will recognize them. I need Yancy’s sketches four-walled. You can push it out everywhere.”

“Believe me, when we have those faces?” He once again glanced up at the jumbo screens, now unprecedentedly blank. “They’ll be everywhere.”

“They might dive into a hole once that happens. But the hole won’t be deep enough.” She looked around at the four bodies, curtained now from the gawkers. “I swear it won’t be deep enough. Excuse me, sir, Morris is here. I need to speak with him.”

As she walked away, Whitney stepped over to the fallen officer, pulled off the NYPSD lapel pin he wore, and laid it—reverently—on the shielded body.