A bitter wind off Long Island Sound was slicing through the sere brown grasslands of Pelham Bay Park. Low pale gray clouds were flying into the west, trailing shadows across the fields and low rolling hills of the Split Rock Golf Course. On the far side of the lagoon, the parking lot and the curved park land of Orchard Beach was deserted, silent, empty. The clubhouse for the golf course was often open during the fall and spring, for parties or gallery displays, but the cold damp winds of winter usually kept people in their homes and out of the open unprotected stretch of the park. The building itself was a large wooden structure with wide porches and a broad balcony overlooking the lagoon and the view of the Sound beyond it. It commanded the approaches very well, and getting up close to it without being seen was a tactical problem that Rico Groza had been working on ever since Grizzly had asked him to stake the place out that morning.
Rico had taken a position about a hundred yards from the building, on a small wooded rise. His Marshals van was parked down the leeward slope, out of the line of sight. Although he was wearing a black ski jacket and warm clothing, the steady currents of the wind had gradually chilled him over the hours, making the mild day in the city a distant memory. He had been watching the clubhouse through a pair of Zeiss binoculars and sipping coffee from a Thermos, now empty.
There had been no sign, no movement at all in any window or doorway or anywhere around the building. He hadn’t bothered to call patrol units from the Four-Five for close-up support. They’d be too visible, and anyway, if Pigeye Quail was there, he was a Marshals target. This was what they did for a living. He figured Luke would put some city units on the park perimeter.
He turned when he heard the sound of engines coming along the Hutchinson River Parkway behind him. He saw Luke’s tan Caprice, moving slowly. He raised a hand, and the car turned off the parkway and rolled down onto the rough cropped grass. Luke, Walt, Grizzly, and a young black man got out. Walt came up the low slope toward Rico’s position, carrying a brown paper bag. His Irish features were rubbed bright red by the sea wind, and his lips looked a little blue as he tried to smile. He covered the last few feet in a crouch and handed the bag to Rico. The smell of chicken soup and hot coffee rose up out of the bag.
Rico watched the young black Marshal as he opened the car trunk and lifted out a long black nylon case. Rico picked up a cup of black coffee, popped the lid, and sipped at it carefully.
“Who’s the shooter?” he said in a hoarse whisper. His body was shaking slightly.
“Kid named Mark Shealey.”
Rico nodded. “Special Ops. I know him.”
“Yeah,” said Walt. “He had great numbers on the MOUT site. This is for real. Where do you want him?”
“He’ll figure that out for himself. Have we got people on the exits?”
“Luke called the Four-Five. They have units at the north end of Pelham Bridge, on Park, and on City Island. We’ve got the Hutchinson covered. If he’s in there, he’s not getting out by car. If he’s as bad hurt as we think he is, he’s not going to walk out.”
“And if he has a hostage?”
Walt glanced over to the tan Caprice, where Luke and Grizzly were standing, talking to the shooter.
“That’s where he comes in,” said Walt. “I hope he’s good.”
“So do I,” said Rico.
Luke had left the car and was coming across the field to Rico’s observation post. Grizzly and the Special Operations sniper were making their way to a high point where a small copse of spindly trees gave them a view of the clubhouse and the surrounding grasslands. The trees would break up their silhouette. The range from the trees to the clubhouse was close to five hundred yards.
Luke reached them in a crouch, settled down beside them. The men watched as Grizzly and the sniper disappeared into the trees. In three minutes Luke got a short double-click transmission on his radio. He clicked back once.
“Okay, they’re in position. Rico, you want to do this?”
Rico nodded. Sharing command was always tricky. Given their history, and the fact that Rico had been given Luke’s post in D.C., Rico was careful to observe every courtesy with Luke.
“Okay, if that’s all right with you. I’ve been watching this place. Not a rustle. Not a blind out of place. I’m operating on the assumption that he has a hostage in there.”
Walt rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them. The wind carried the smell of salt water, seaweed, dead fish. He was looking at the clubhouse as if he could stare through the walls.
“If he’s in there. You figure the woman? The Honda driver?”
“Who else? I’d say she was single, maybe a traveler. Whoever she is, she can disappear for five days and nobody gets too excited about it. Missing Persons has nothing. But if she was free, we’d sure as hell have heard about it. She’d be onto the Newark cops, somebody. So he’s holding her.”
“Or she’s dead,” said Luke.
“Yeah, or she’s dead.” Rico’s skin was mottled from the cold, and his breath was a short white plume. “But we can’t assume that. Even in New York, somebody’d find her body. If she was in the river, she’d have turned up at the South Street Seaport or she’d have caught a snag somewhere. Floaters float. We have to operate on the assumption that she’s in there, and she’s alive.”
“Shealey thinks we ought to call in his team. Let them do it. Hostage ops are their specialty.”
“Right,” said Walt. “And when does Deputy Shealey think his boys can spare us the time? Next Tuesday? Let’s get this done, okay? I’m shaking so hard, I think I just snapped a vasectomy clip here.”
“Well, button yourself back up,” said Rico, “because we’re here for a while.”
Walt groaned.
Luke smiled at Rico. “I was afraid of that,” he said.
“But you know I’m right?”
“Oh yes,” said Luke. “No other way.”
• • •
At four-fifty that afternoon, the sun set behind the low clustered rooftops of Baychester and Wakefield, and the monuments and crypts of Woodlawn Cemetery. The lights were coming on all around them, low distant yellow sparks in the homes and city streets. Now and then, they’d get a transmission from one of the Four-Five patrol units—breaking off for shift, or going ten-six to leave the car for coffee or to signal a replacement unit. But for the men watching the clubhouse there had been no break at all, and now the cold was working its way deep into their bodies. Coffee and soup helped, but not much.
Each hour seemed a slow progression of frozen time, each second a shard of ice cracking. By seven o’clock, it was full dark, and the clubhouse loomed in the distance like a piece of black rock. All around them the huge city hummed and boomed in the darkness, an ocean of light and noise and people. Far out in the Sound, the sea rolled in silence. At seven forty-two by the illuminated dial of Luke’s Indiglo, a tiny red spark showed in the lower left-hand window of the clubhouse. At the same moment they got a triple-click on the radio. Luke had to try three times to finger the speak button.
“Six actual.”
Grizzly’s voice came back, low, chilled to the bone. “Bravo Six. Shealey’s got movement there. Can you see it?”
“Ten-four. What is it?”
A pause.
“He says it’s a cigarette.”
“What scope has he got fitted?”
Another pause.
“He says he has a Starlite, Six actual. He can fit his infrared.”
“How’s his image?”
A muttered exchange sounded over the little handset.
“He has a figure at the window. Smoking. Can’t tell if it’s male or female.”
“Does he have a shot?”
“Yeah. But who is it?”
“Ten-four, Grizzly. Tell him to fit his IR if he thinks it will help. Right now, we wait for it.”
“Ten-four. Out.”
The handset went dead. The men watched the clubhouse now, suddenly very awake, the chill not forgotten but somehow less intense. Four minutes passed. Then the handset again, Grizzly’s hoarse whisper.
“Mark’s got heat.”
The sniper must have fitted his infrared scope. Now he was picking up body heat or some heat source in the frozen nightscape encompassed by the telephoto image. The view would be shades of intense black and tiny blobs of pale violet, bright red.
A sound came across the grassy waste. A muted wheezing cough that settled into a low muttering rumble. A car engine. Grizzly’s voice came up again.
“More heat. Big signature. Looks like it’s in that subbasement there, where the roll-up doors are. Looks like some kind of combustion.”
That was enough for them all.
“Ten-four, Grizzly. We’re going in. Hold your position.”
“Mark says he’s not gonna know who’s who, Luke.”
“Will he know if he uses the Starlite?”
Silence.
“He says maybe. The light’s real bad, and he’s getting a lot of back-scatter from City Island over there. He’d rather use the IR, but then his resolution isn’t as good.”
“Fine,” said Luke. “Just tell him not to shoot anybody who isn’t a bad guy. We have to move now.”
They were already moving, fanning out across the golf course. The brittle dead grass made a rustling crackle as they crossed it, and their gear jingled softly. Luke had his Taurus out. Walt was carrying a small MP-5 and Rico had a Beretta with a laser sight mounted under the barrel. In a few seconds, they closed the distance to the clubhouse. The cloud cover was hiding the stars. It was cold and dark in the low fairways. A line of trees marked the edge of the car lot. They ran lightly, Luke’s right knee aching as it usually did, but they covered the ground well. As they neared the main building, the sound of a car engine grew. It was turning over quietly. Now they were within fifty feet of the subbasement doors. The sound was definitely coming from there. It was very dark and almost impossible to distinguish a bush from a man, or a man from a hostage.
Luke stopped at a low rise and picked up his radio again.
“Grizzly?” His voice was barely a breath. The wind was building now, and it rumbled across the handset mike. It cut like a knife where it curled and slid around open skin.
“We have you, Luke. You’re all bunched up by the edge of the parking lot. Raise your hand.”
Luke did.
“Okay, that’s you by the end of the treeline. I think we can work this. I have the Starlite. Mark’s got the IR fitted. What now?”
“He’ll be coming out. That’s a car engine. What’s the heat signature now?”
“Big,” said Grizzly. “Door size.”
They heard a grating in the darkness, metal on metal. Luke knew the sound. He heard it every night on Court Street, when the bar downstairs pulled its shutters closed at two A.M.
Now radio talk was impossible. The cold air would carry the sound of a voice as if it were underwater. Luke double-clicked out. Got a single answering click. The three men moved forward toward the door, fanned out, each very aware of the position of the other two. Luke’s heart was pounding a bit, as it usually did, and he pulled in a couple of slow deep breaths, trying to suppress his adrenaline flow. The main building was less than twenty feet now, and there was a faint glow showing by a line of brush near the basement door. If this was Pigeye Quail, he must have hidden the Honda in the basement. If he had, he was moving better than they thought he could. Maybe his wound wasn’t as bad as it had looked on the video.
Or someone had moved the car for him.
The woman.
The woman was the key.
Rico was only assuming she was a hostage. There was another explanation: She was an accomplice. Luke put it at fifty-fifty. Whatever it was, they had to be careful around the woman. They heard a car door slam, a muffled thunk, and then another door. The soft glow they had seen was gone. The roof light inside the car. It would shut off when they closed the doors.
They.
Two people.
The noise of the engine rose, coughed, settled into a steady rumble. Then a metallic clunk as it kicked into gear.
No voices.
No threats.
No arguments.
Lights off, the little car was moving up the basement ramp. They heard its wheels as they reached the gravel road. They heard the tires grinding through the stones. Luke’s radio clicked three times.
Mark Shealey had acquired a target. If Luke raised his right arm, Shealey would fire at the driver of the car.
Luke kept his arm down. They needed a positive ID. The only way to do that was to get right in there and put a light on the two people in the car. And the time to do that was now. It was making him nervous to set out here in the dark knowing that a man was looking down a sniper scope at him from five hundred yards. Luke had never met a sniper he liked.
Luke touched Rico’s shoulder. Rico touched Walt.
The car was approaching their position. It would have to go past them to reach the entrance to Pelham Bridge Road. If the driver turned on the car lights, they’d be caught in the beams.
Luke’s handset clicked twice. Call me, Grizzly was saying.
It clicked again. Luke ignored it.
Rico leaned forward, whispered to Luke.
“I’ll take the driver,” he said.
“Okay,” said Luke.
Walt would hold back and cover.
The car was a black bug creeping in the velvet dark. They could see it as a kind of bulky shadow against the city-glow shining on the cloud cover. A faint glow from the dashboard light was shining on two faces, one pale and white, the driver, and the other one in the passenger seat, larger, man-shaped … something about the face …
The neurons buzzed and the synapse flared—zapped across the gap.
Pigeye Quail.
Rico gave a little grunt of effort as he pushed off the ground. Luke was right behind him. Their boots hit the gravel now, stones skittering. The driver heard them, punched the pedal, the little car jumped forward—Rico had his laser sight on, and the tiny red dot was dancing around on the driver’s forehead. She screamed—Walt lit the scene up with his Maglite—they were bellowing now—“Freeze! Federal officers!”—the woman’s voice still ringing—the car’s engine snarling now—closing. Luke was turning to avoid the leading fender when the car headlights flared on—he was blinded, had a glimpse of Rico’s black form caught in the glare of the lights—Rico saying “Freeze now!” in a clear hard voice—all business—his Beretta centered, the tiny red dot a Hindu ruby in the middle of the woman’s forehead—the car racing forward—the heat of the engine in Luke’s face—the grinding of the tires rushing—the bumper went by his ribs like a bull grazing a matador’s vest. He had the Taurus up now and saw Pigeye Quail—saw his ponytail hanging down, his unshaven face in the light from Walt Rich’s flash—less than a second—Pigeye was staring into the muzzle of Luke’s Taurus as he came closer—and he jumped—jerked—the car wheels locked up solid—plowing up the gravel—Pigeye’s hands were in the air—the woman was still screaming—“No!” she was saying, “No!”—and Pigeye’s ragged baritone bleat—“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot—I’m hurt, man, I’m hurt!”
The car was stopped now. Rico held his Beretta steady, that little red laser dot unmoving, painted on the woman’s forehead. She sat there like a dead woman, her hands locked onto the steering wheel, eyes wide, mouth open. Luke wrenched the passenger door open and pulled Pigeye Quail out onto the gravel. He hit hard and bellowed in pain, holding his crotch.
Rico was dragging the woman out from behind the wheel. Walt Rich stood back and covered both takedowns. Luke jerked Pigeye onto his face, reaching for his cuffs, wrenching the man’s muscular arms backward and up. Pigeye was facedown in the gravel, a soft whimpering noise coming from his closed mouth, his lips thin and white. He had tears on his face.
The woman was thin, pale, and hunted-looking, her hair lank and unwashed, her eyes ringed and red-rimmed. She was wearing a heavy knitted sweater and jeans. Luke knew her.
“You’re Fay Koenig.”
She shook her head. Luke lifted Pigeye up by the cuffs and the ponytail, and he screamed out loud, an animal squeal. Luke held him up that way and stared at her.
She stared back.
Finally she said, “Put him down. Please.”
“You’re Fay Koenig, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, while Rico was cuffing her and patting her down. Fay Koenig was on their hit list too, as a known associate of a biker enforcer named Urjo Stodt. Urjo Stodt, also on their hit list, was a very large, very bad-tempered PCP user with a NYSIIS sheet as long as the Mets’ losing streak. His specialties included crystal meth labs, extortion, rape, murder, and armed robbery.
Especially suburban banks.
Urjo’s nickname in the Hell’s Angels was Teach. Not short for “teacher,” but short for Edward Teach, a famous pirate who was also well known for something else.
His large black beard.
“Where’s Teach?”
She shook her head.
Luke tugged at Pigeye’s ponytail, and Pigeye howled.
“You prick.”
“Where’s Teach?” asked Luke, his voice steady and flat.
She paused. Luke tightened his hand inside Pigeye’s ponytail again. Before he could pull it, she said, “Don’t! Okay?”
“Why’d he leave Pigeye in the bank?”
“That was the deal. If either guy got cut off, the other guy was to grab the cash and split. I was supposed to hang back, see if I could help. It was supposed to look like a carjack thing.”
“Where’s the cash?”
“Teach has it.”
“And where’s Teach?”
She paused again. Pigeye’s throat was working, his mouth opened up by the pressure on his neck. His breathing was coming in short sharp sobs, his breath puffing white in the harsh beams.
“Gallatinville,” she said, after a long minute.
Luke smiled at her and let Pigeye drop face-first back onto the stones. His breath huffed out of him, and he twisted into a kind of fetal position, his knees tightly locked, his face bone white. He was the very incarnation of the concept of pain. Grizzly and Mark Shealey came up at a slow trot. Rico stood in silence, watching Pigeye suffer on the ground.
Luke, who knew what Pigeye’s habits were, felt very little of anything. He could feel the pain coming off the man, smell it on the cold wind from the sea, a copper-scented reek. He took a deep breath and held it until his heart pounded, then let it go, a plume of white mist in the cone of light from Walt Rich’s flash. He looked down at his right hand, saw the familiar, barely detectable tremor. Mark Shealey was looking at Luke’s face, his eyes careful. Luke felt his look and wondered what the young man was thinking, what this scene seemed to be from his point of view. Well, he was a sniper, wasn’t he?
He could afford to keep his distance.