When Lionel Mercer’s stomach growled, he glanced reflexively at his watch, and was startled to discover that it was after 2 a.m.
Christ, he thought. How long’s it been since I last ate?
For security purposes, the New York field office’s command center was located at the interior of the building, far away from any windows—which meant that Lionel hadn’t caught a glimpse of natural light since he’d arrived that morning.
A musky scent hung in the air. The command center was crammed beyond capacity with agents, analysts, and technicians, many of whom hadn’t seen a bed or shower in days.
“Any recent sightings?” he barked.
“Dozens,” Paget said, “most of them bullshit—unless you believe that Gibson’s tossing back shots at a VFW in East Rockaway, or Hassan roughed up some random Soho cokehead with a laundry list of priors.”
Mercer sighed. “What about known associates?”
“Hassan’s brother-in-law is now in custody,” Medina replied. “We’re leveraging his visa status to sweat the family, but so far, they haven’t given us anything actionable.”
“And Gibson’s?”
“Could be nothing,” said Paget, “but we’re having trouble locating the ex he rang up on the night of the Park City attack.”
A junior officer hovering at Lionel’s side attempted to break in. “Uh, sir?”
Lionel, ignoring her, asked Paget: “You think Gibson’s ex is helping him somehow?”
“Hard to say. SIGINT dug into their text history. Seems they parted on bad terms, and he’s drunk-dialed her a few times since.”
“Sir?” she tried again.
“What about her socials?” Lionel asked.
“She posted something Saturday, on Bangarang, about leaving the city awhile. That’s consistent with her phone’s last known location—some bumfuck town in Eastern Pennsylvania—but it went dark not long after, and we’ve been unable to reactivate it remotely.”
“Maybe it died. Tell SIGINT to keep trying. We’ll circle back as the evidence dictates.”
“Director Mercer!”
“What?” Lionel snapped.
“You have a phone call.”
“Is it the president?”
“No, but—”
“Then take a fucking message. It may have escaped your attention, but I’m coordinating a goddamn manhunt here.”
“That’s just it, sir.” She swallowed hard. “The caller identified himself as Jacob Gibson.”
Lionel blinked in surprise, his anger evaporating as he tried to process what he’d just been told. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“Where’s he calling from?”
“The phone is pinging off a tower in the South Bronx. Its signal strength is steady, which indicates he isn’t on the move, but Wi-Fi and A-GPS are disabled. We’re scraping data from its gyroscope and accelerometer, as well as analyzing background noise, but converting that into exact coordinates is going to take some time.”
Lionel jabbed a finger at the conference room. “I’ll take it in there. Notify me the moment you get a fix on him.”
“Yes, sir.”
At the center of the conference table was a speakerphone. Lionel tapped the blinking line and said, “Mercer here.”
“Hiya, Lionel. Can I call you Lionel? On second thought, fuck it. I’m on the lam—a person of interest, to borrow your phrase, who should be considered armed and dangerous—so I’m just gonna go ahead and call you Lionel.”
“Lionel’s fine. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Oh, come on, Lionel, you already know the answer to that, or you never would’ve bothered picking up.”
“Still, I’d like to hear you say it.”
The voice on the other end of the call laughed. “Of course you would—and preferably nice and slow, so you can use the time to pinpoint my location.”
Mercer fell silent for a beat. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Lemme save you the trouble. I’m on North Brother Island.”
“North Brother Island? What on earth are you doing there?”
“Thinking, mostly.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What about?”
“A fascinating conversation I had with an old colleague of yours by the name of Jessica Vandermeer.”
Lionel’s mouth went dry. He opened it to speak, but no sound came out.
“You remember Jess, don’t you?” Gibson continued. “Because she sure as hell remembers you. In fact, she told me all about this operation you handpicked her for a few years back. Said you called it Shadow Reckoning.”
He cleared his throat. “Never heard of it.”
“That’s funny. The drop box full of records Jess squirreled away tells a different story. Now, I’ve been kinda busy lately, so I haven’t had a chance to read through everything—but, from what little I have seen, your life’s gonna take an ugly turn if this shit leaks.”
“What do you want, Gibson?”
“Tell you what: why don’t you come ask me that in person? Say, an hour from now, at the beach between the coal dock and the gantry?”
“You can’t expect me to—”
“The hell I can’t. If you don’t show, every journalist on the planet with a public email address is gonna be reading about Shadow Reckoning over their morning coffee. Ditto if, to pick a crazy hypothetical, I wind up dying in a drone strike between now and then.”
“You’re bluffing,” Lionel said. “You don’t have a goddamn thing.”
“Only one way to find out,” Gibson replied. “See you soon, Lionel.”
The phone went dead.