The Twelfth Card

by Jeffery Deaver

"I'll do it," Sachs said, by far the slimmest of the officers present. "But I need this room cleared. To save the evidence."

  "Roger that. We'll get you inside then pull back." Haumann ordered the bed moved aside. Sachs knelt down and shone her flashlight through the hole, on the other side of which was a catwalk in a warehouse or factory. To reach it she had a four-foot crawl through the tight space.

  "Shit," muttered Amelia Sachs, the woman who'd drive 160 miles per hour and trade shots face to face with cornered perps but came close to paralysis at the hint of claustrophobia.

  Headfirst or feet?

  She sighed.

  Headfirst would be spookier but safer; at least she'd have a few seconds to find the umsub's firing position before he could draw a target. She looked into the tight, dark space. A deep breath. Pistol in hand, she started forward.

  *

  What the hell's the matter with me? Lon Sellitto thought, standing in front of the warehouse beside the herbal goods importer, the building whose front door he was supposed to be guarding. He stared at this doorway and at the windows, looking for the escaped unsub, praying the perp would show up so he could nail him.

  Praying that he wouldn't.

  What the hell's the matter?

  In his years on the force Sellitto had been in a dozen firefights, taken weapons off cranked-up psychos, even wrestled a suicide off the roof of the Flatiron Building, with nothing but six inches of ornate trim separating him from heaven. He'd gotten shook sometimes, sure. But he'd always bounced right back. Nothing'd ever affected him like Barry's death this morning. Being in the line of fire had spooked him, no denying that. But this was something else. Something to do with being so close to a person at that one moment . . . the moment of death. He couldn't get the librarian's voice out of his head, his last words as a living person.

  I didn't really see--

  Couldn't forget the sound of the three bullets striking his chest either.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

  They were soft, barely audible, faint slaps. He'd never heard a noise like that. Lon Sellitto now shivered and felt nauseous.

  And the man's brown eyes . . . They were looking right into Sellitto's when the slugs hit. In a fraction of an instant there was surprise, then pain, then . . . nothing. It was the oddest thing Sellitto had ever seen. Not like drifting off to sleep, not distracted. The only way to describe it: one moment there was something complicated and real behind the eyes and then, an instant later, even before he crumpled to the sidewalk, there was nothing.

  The detective had remained frozen, staring at the limp doll lying in front of him--despite the fact that he knew he should be trying to run down the shooter. The medics had actually jostled him aside to get to Barry; Sellitto had been unable to move.

  Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

  Then, when it came time to call Barry's next of kin, Sellitto had balked again. He'd made plenty of those difficult calls over the years. None of them easy, of course. But today he simply couldn't face it. He'd made up some bullshit excuse about his phone and let someone else do the duty. He was afraid his voice would crack. He was afraid he'd cry, which he'd never done in his decades of service.

  Now, he heard the radio report on the futile pursuit of the perp.

  Hearing, tap, tap, tap . . .

  Fuck, I just want to go home.

  He wanted to be with Rachel, have a beer with her on their porch in Brooklyn. Well, too early for beer. A coffee. Or maybe it wasn't too early for a beer. Or a scotch. He wanted to be sitting there, watching the grass and trees. Talking. Or not saying anything. Just to be with her. Suddenly the detective's thoughts shifted to his teenage son, who lived with Sellitto's ex. He hadn't called the boy for three or four days. Had to do that.

  He--

  Shit. Sellitto realized that he was standing in the middle of Elizabeth Street with his back to the building he was supposed to be guarding, lost in thought. Jesus Christ! What're you doing? The shooter's loose around here somewhere, and you're fucking daydreaming? He could be waiting in that alley there, or the other one, just like he was that morning.

  Crouching, Sellitto turned back, examining the dark windows, smudged or shaded. The perp could be behind any one of them, sighting down on him right now with that fucking little gun of his. Tap, tap . . . The needles from the bullets tearing flesh to shreds as they fanned out. Sellitto shivered and stepped back, taking refuge between two parked delivery trucks, out of sight of the windows. Peering around the side of one van, he watched the black windows, he watched the door.

  But those weren't what he saw. No, he was seeing the brown eyes of the librarian in front of him, a few feet away.

  I didn't . . .

  Tap, tap . . .

  Life becoming no life.

  Those eyes . . .

  He wiped his shooting hand on his suit trousers, telling himself that he was sweating only because of the body armor. What was with the fucking weather? It was too hot for October. Who the hell wouldn't sweat?

  *

  "I can't see him, K," Sachs whispered into her microphone.

  "Say again?" was Haumann's staticky reply.

  "No sign of him, K."

  The warehouse into which Unsub 109 had fled was essentially one big open space divided by mesh catwalks. On the floor were pallets of olive oil bottles and tomato sauce cans, sealed in shrink-wrap. The catwalk she stood on was about thirty feet up, around the perimeter--level with the unsub's apartment in the building next door. It was a working warehouse, though probably used only sporadically; there were no signs that employees had been here recently. The lights were out but enough illumination filtered through greasy skylights to give her a view of the place.

  The floors were swept clean and she could find no footprints to reveal which way Unsub 109 had gone. In addition to the front door and back loading-dock door, there were two others on the ground-floor level, to the side. One labeled Restroom, the other unmarked.

  Moving slowly, swinging her Glock ahead of her, her flashlight beam seeking a target, Amelia Sachs soon cleared the catwalks and the open area of the warehouse. She reported this to Haumann. ESU officers then kicked in the loading-dock door of the warehouse and entered, spreading out. Relieved for the reinforcements, she used hand signals to point to the two side doors. The cops converged on them.

  Haumann radioed, "We've been canvassing but nobody's seen him outside. He might still be inside, K."

  Sachs quietly acknowledged the transmission. She walked down the stairs to the main floor, joining up with the other officers.

  She pointed to the bathroom. "On three," she whispered.

  They nodded. One pointed to himself but she shook her head, meaning she was going in on point. Sachs was furious--that the perp had gotten away, that he had a rape pack in a smiley-face bag, that he'd shot an innocent simply for diversion. She wanted this guy nailed and she wanted to make sure she had a piece of him.

  She was in the armored vest, of course, but she couldn't help thinking about what would happen if one of those needle bullets hit her face or arm.

  Or throat.

  She held up a single finger. One . . .

  Go in fast, go in low, with two pounds of pressure on the two-and-a-half-pound trigger.

  You sure about this, girl?

  An image of Lincoln Rhyme came to mind.

  Two . . .

  Then a memory of her patrolman father imparting his philosophy of life from his deathbed, "Remember, Amie, when you move they can't getcha."

  So, move!

  Three.

  She nodded. An officer kicked the door open--nobody was going near any metal doorknobs--and Sachs lunged forward, dropping into a painful crouch and spraying the flashlight beam around the small, windowless bathroom.

  Empty.

  She backed out and turned to the other door. The same routine here.

  On three, another powerful kick. The door cracked inward.

  Guns and flashlights up. Sachs thoug
ht, Brother, never easy, is it? She was looking down a long stairway that descended into pitch-black darkness. She noted that there were no backs on the stairs, which meant that the unsub could stand behind them and shoot into their ankles, calves or backs as they descended.

  "Dark," she whispered.

  The men shut out their flashlights, mounted to the barrels of their machine guns. Sachs went first, knees aching. Twice she nearly tumbled down the uneven, loose steps. Four ESU officers followed her.

  "Corner formation," she whispered, knowing she wasn't technically in charge, but unable to stop herself at this point. The troops didn't question her. Touching one another's shoulders to orient themselves, they formed a rough square, each facing outward and guarding a quadrant of the basement.

  "Lights!"

  The beams of the powerful halogens suddenly filled the small space as the guns sought targets.

  She saw no threat, heard no sounds. Except one fucking loud heartbeat, she thought.

  But that's mine.

  The basement contained a furnace, pipes, oil tanks, about a thousand empty beer bottles. Piles of trash. A half dozen edgy rats.

  Two officers probed the stinking garbage bags, but the perp was clearly not here.

  She radioed Haumann what they'd found. No one else had seen a sign of the unsub. All the officers were going to rendezvous at the command post truck to continue the canvass of the neighborhood, while Sachs searched the scenes for evidence--with everybody keeping in mind that, as at the museum earlier, the killer might still be nearby.

  . . . watch your back.

  Sighing, she replaced her weapon and turned toward the stairs. Then paused. If she took the same flight of steps back up to the main floor--a nightmare on her arthritic knees--she'd still have to walk down another flight to street level. An easier alternative was to take the much shorter stairway directly to the sidewalk.

  Sometimes, she reflected, turning toward it, you just have to pamper yourself.

  *

  Lon Sellitto had become obsessed with one particular window.

  He'd heard the transmission that the warehouse was clear, but he wondered if ESU had actually gotten into all the nooks and crannies. After all, everybody'd missed the unsub that morning at the museum. He'd easily gotten within pistol range.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  That one window, far right, second floor . . . It seemed to Sellitto that it had quivered once or twice.

  Maybe just the wind. But maybe the motion was from somebody trying to open it.

  Or aiming through it.

  Tap.

  He shivered and stepped back.

  "Hey," he called to an ESU officer, who'd just come out of the herbal importer's. "Take a look--you see anything in that window?"

  "Where?"

  "That one." Sellitto leaned out of cover just a bit and pointed to the black glass square.

  "Naw. But the place's cleared. Didn't you hear?"

  Sellitto leaned out from cover a bit farther, hearing tap, tap, tap, seeing brown eyes going lifeless. He squinted and, shivering, looked the window over carefully. Then in his periphery he suddenly saw motion to his left and heard the squeal of a door opening. A flash of light as the cold sun reflected off something metallic.

  It's him!

  "God," Sellitto whispered. He went for his gun, crouching and spinning toward the glint. But instead of following procedures when speed-drawing a weapon and keeping his index finger outside the trigger guard, he yanked the Colt from his holster in a panic.

  Which is why the gun discharged an instant later, sending the slug directly toward the spot where Amelia Sachs was emerging from the basement door to the warehouse.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Standing at the corner of Canal and Sixth, a dozen blocks from his safe house, Thompson Boyd waited for the light to change. He caught his breath and wiped his damp face.

  He wasn't shaken, he wasn't freaked out--the breathlessness and sweat were from the sprint to safety--but he was curious how they'd found him. He was always so careful with his contacts and the phones he used, and always checking to see if he was being followed, that he guessed it had to be through physical evidence. Made sense--because he was pretty sure that the woman in white, walking through the museum library scene like a sidewinder snake, had been in the hallway outside the apartment on Elizabeth Street. What had he left behind at the museum? Something in the rape bag? Some bits of trace from his shoes or clothes?

  They were the best investigators he'd ever encountered. He'd have to keep that in mind.

  Gazing at the traffic, he reflected on the escape. When he'd seen the officers coming up the stairs, he'd quickly placed the book and the purchases from the hardware store into the shopping bag, grabbed his attache case and gun, then clicked on the switch that turned the doorknob live. He'd kicked through the wall and escaped into the warehouse next door, climbed to its roof and then hurried south to the end of the block. Climbing down a fire escape, he'd turned west and started sprinting, taking the course he'd charted out and practiced dozens of times.

  Now, at Canal and Sixth, he was lost in a crowd waiting for the light to change, hearing the sirens of the police cars joining in the search for him. His face was emotionless, his hands didn't shake, he wasn't angry, he wasn't panicked. This was the way he had to be. He'd seen it over and over again--dozens of professional killers he'd known had been caught because they panicked, lost their cool in front of the police and broke down under routine questioning. That, or they got rattled during the job, leaving evidence or living witnesses. Emotion--love, anger, fear--makes you sloppy. You had to be cool, distant.

  Numb . . .

  Thompson gripped his pistol, hidden in his raincoat pocket, as he watched several squad cars speed up Sixth Avenue. The vehicles skidded around the corner and turned east on Canal. They were pulling out all the stops looking for him. Not surprising, Thompson knew. New York's finest would frown on a perp electrocuting one of their own (though in Thompson's opinion it was the cop's own fault for being careless).

  Then a faint tone of concern sounded in his brain as he watched another squad car skid to a stop three blocks away. Officers got out and began interviewing people on the street. Then another rolled to a stop only two hundred feet from where he now stood. And they were moving this way. His car was parked near Hudson, about five minutes away. He had to get to it now. But still the stoplight remained red.

  More sirens filled the air.

  This was becoming a problem.

  Thompson looked at the crowd around him, most of them peering east, intent on the police cars and the officers. He needed some distraction, some cover to get across the street. Just something . . . didn't have to be flamboyant. Just enough to deflect people's attention for a time. A fire in a trash bin, a car alarm, the sound of breaking glass . . . Any other ideas? Glancing south, to his left, Thompson noticed a large commuter bus headed up Sixth Avenue. It was approaching the intersection where the cluster of pedestrians stood. Set fire to the trash bin, or this? Thompson Boyd decided. He eased closer to the curb, behind an Asian girl, slim, in her twenties. All it took was an easy push in her lower back to send her into the bus's path. Twisting in panic, gasping, she slid off the curb.

  "She fell!" Thompson cried in a drawl-free shout. "Get her!"

  Her wail was cut off as the right sideview mirror of the bus struck her shoulder and head and flung her body, tumbling, along the sidewalk. Blood spattered the window and those standing nearby. The brakes screamed. So did several of the women in the crowd.

  The bus skidded to a stop in the middle of Canal, blocking traffic, where it would have to remain until the accident investigation. A fire in a trash basket, a breaking bottle, a car alarm--they might've worked. But he'd decided that killing the girl was more efficient.

  Traffic was instantly frozen, including two approaching police cars on Sixth Avenue.

  He crossed the street slowly, leaving the gathering crowd of horrified passersby, who
were crying, or shouting, or just staring in shock at the limp, bloody body, crumpled against a chain-link fence. Her unseeing eyes stared blankly skyward. Apparently nobody thought the tragedy was anything more than a terrible accident.

  People running toward her, people calling 911 on mobile phones . . . chaos. Thompson now calmly crossed the street, weaving through the stopped traffic. He'd already forgotten the Asian girl and was considering more important matters: He'd lost one safe house. But at least he'd escaped with his weapons, the things he'd bought at the hardware store and his instruction book. There were no clues at the apartment to lead to him or the man who'd hired him; not even the woman in white could find any connection. No, this wasn't a serious problem.

  He paused at a pay phone, called voice mail and received some good news. Geneva Settle, he learned, was attending Langston Hughes High School in Harlem. She was also, he found out, being guarded by police, which was no surprise, of course. Thompson would find out more details soon--presumably where she lived or even, with some luck, the fact that an opportunity had presented itself, and the girl had already been shot to death, the job finished.

  Thompson Boyd then continued on to his car--a three-year-old Buick, in a boring shade of blue, a medium car, an average car, for Average Joe. He pulled into traffic and circled far around the bus accident congestion. He made his way toward the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, his thoughts occupied about what he'd learned in the book he'd been studying for the past hour, the one bristling with Post-it tabs, thinking about how he'd put his new skills to use.

  *

  "I don't . . . I don't know what to say."

  Miserable, Lon Sellitto was looking up at the captain who'd come directly here from Police Plaza as soon as the brass learned of the shooting incident. Sellitto sat on the curb, hair askew, belly over his belt, pink flesh showing between the buttons. His scuffed shoes pointed outward. Everything about him was rumpled at the moment.

  "What happened?" The large, balding African-American captain had taken possession of Sellitto's revolver and was holding it at his side, unloaded, the cylinder open, following NYPD procedures after an officer has discharged a weapon.

  Sellitto looked into the tall man's eyes and said, "I fumbled my piece."

  The captain nodded slowly and turned to Amelia Sachs. "You're okay?"

  She shrugged. "It was nothing. Slug hit nowhere near me."