The Execution

by Dick Wolf

  They had come here a few times before they ever became a couple, with that feeling hanging in the air between them, a pregnant feeling of anticipation and longing as their attraction gathered steam. She would sit at the bar, and Fisk would stand next to her, talking close, she swinging her leg into his, little bumps of camaraderie and flirtation; spying is not the “great game,” flirting is. Gersten never wore perfume, but he still had a bottle of the shampoo she kept at his place, and for a while he uncapped it every morning, never to use it, only to inhale the scent. Now it stood in the wire basket that hung from his showerhead along with his own Head & Shoulders and his razor, his focal point every morning and every postworkout shower.

  Would he and Gersten have married? Had kids? Moved to Staten Island (if she’d had her way) or Brooklyn (if he’d had his)? What color would the door to their house have been? Or would it all have come crashing down in time, the way of most relationships? He wasn’t an easy guy to love.

  It was easy to go on loving someone who wasn’t there anymore. But he knew this in his bones: she had been The One. It would have taken another cop, and a tough one at that, to put up with him.

  He sat facing the door, as most cops do, but his gaze was far away. It had been a long time since anyone had snuck up on him, even without meaning to.

  “Hey, whoa. Easy. I come in peace.”

  Fisk must have looked startled and angry. He recognized the sandy-haired man standing at his table. He looked like he could have been a computer programmer, probably a science fiction buff: pale skinned, plain faced, wincing.

  “Dave Link,” said Fisk, making him. “Sorry, man. Weird moment.”

  “Not a problem,” said Link. “Good to see you, Fisk.”

  Link had two identical drinks in his hands. Whiskey, neat. Fisk looked down at his own glass. To his surprise, it was empty.

  Link set one down in front of Fisk. “Compliments of the Central Intelligence Agency,” he said. “May I?”

  Fisk nodded to the empty seat. Link sat, turning the chair so that he was facing half toward the bar, with the back wall at his shoulder. “Thanks,” said Fisk, raising the fresh drink from the tabletop to toast him, but not drinking it yet.

  “Here’s to the light of day,” said Link. “And that piece of shit Jenssen never seeing it again.”

  Now Fisk had to drink. And so he did. “Didn’t see you at the sentencing.”

  Link winced after the first swallow. “Wasn’t there. Heard you were.”

  Fisk nodded.

  “It’s a tough damn thing, just sitting there. Watching. Especially for guys like us.”

  Spies like us, thought Fisk. Here was the CIA agent trying to flatter him, to sympathize. But for what reason?

  “Great work on those other Swedes up north. Tough outcome, but that’s what happens when you poke the hive, huh?”

  The surviving would-be terrorist had been born with the name Nils Olaf Bengtson, but had changed it to Khalid Muhammad upon his conversion to Islam. Bengtson had been a model soldier, serving as a first sergeant in the Rapid Reaction Battalion of the Swedish Army, but became embittered after being turned down for promotion to flag sergeant. After becoming Muhammad, he was thrown out of the Swedish army for refusing to keep his beard trimmed to regulation length. His descent from there was swift, apparently hastened by certain psychological issues.

  “It should have gone much cleaner,” said Fisk. He knew how people—other Intel cops, especially—looked at him now. Gersten had died, and so had the three agents up near the Canadian border. Good people had gone down around him. Cops are, like baseball players and gamblers, some of the most superstitious people out there.

  No one said this to his face, of course. But he was a cop, too: he knew. Though a pure odds player might go the other way, thinking all Fisk’s bad luck had run its course, instead everyone felt he had the mark on him. He was radioactive now.

  “And all the shit you had to go through,” Link said. “No witnesses, all that. Reconstructing it. That had to wear you down.”

  Fisk took another drink. “Little bit.”

  “Gotta stick to your story. I don’t mean it that way. I just mean you gotta tell that same story fifty goddamn times before anyone believes you.”

  The CIA agent saw that he had misplayed that. Fisk’s body language was telling him to fuck off.

  “Hey,” said Link. “That came out wrong. Look, I got into it myself once. A little dust-up in Fallujah. Took down an insurgent and one of our own translators who flipped on me. Entrenching tool. Saving my own life cost me two months of inquests, affidavits, all that muck. No time for the act of it, the killing, to get digested. That shit sticks to your soul.”

  Fisk nodded like maybe Link should change the subject now. The barmaid breezed by, eyes wide in a Want another? expression. Fisk needed to slow down. He ordered a Peroni. Link asked for two.

  “On me,” he said, as she went away. “I guess with tits like that she doesn’t have to be friendly.” Link trying to worm his way back into Fisk’s good graces. Fisk wanted to ask him to what he owed this honor, but instead chose to watch Link work for whatever he wanted.

  “Bottom line is, you took another major threat off the street. With the added bonus of putting the fear of God in people. Fifty bucks says everybody in this place knows what a smoky bomb is.”

  A dirty bomb is a radiological weapon that disperses radioactive material via conventional explosives. The explosive blast would cause moderate short-range lethal damage, and the blast wave carrying radioactive material would sicken a wide radius of innocent persons. At least, that was the theory: in fact, no such device had ever been used as a terror weapon. Two attempts at radiological terror had been made, both in Chechnya, both involving cesium-containing bombs, but neither of which was ever detonated.

  “Dirty” isotopes emit penetrating gamma rays, which are difficult to shield and handle safely. A so-called smoky bomb uses alpha radiation instead, produced by the radioactive decay of certain isotopes, such as polonium 210. Polonium is unusually common and is used in industries involving static electricity control and ionizing air. Alpha radiation is easily shielded and therefore easier to handle safely. A thin layer of aluminum foil is enough to safeguard its handling. Polonium must be eaten or inhaled to cause harm.

  The Swedes had hit upon a way to finely divide and pulverize the polonium into particulate matter for explosive dispersal. The bomb, if detonated, could have killed hundreds. A few breaths were all that was necessary to sicken a victim, perhaps fatally. And the long-term psychological damage to a region such as Manhattan—Times Square was allegedly the Swedes’ intended ground zero—would have been sociologically crippling.

  Most first responders, including those in and around New York City, carried only gamma radiation detectors, suitable for dirty bomb fallout, but unable to detect alphas. Pending federal legislation aimed to remedy that.

  Fisk looked around at the drinkers filling Pence, people filing in after work, singles, couples. A few breaths of smoky radioactive debris. Ten seconds. An ugly death or a lifetime of illness.

  “And how you faring?” asked Link, after the barmaid left their drinks. He had handed her a credit card this time, and she frowned, now needing to make an extra trip back to the table, and tucked the card into her cleavage for safekeeping.

  “Good,” said Fisk. “Medically cleared.”

  The Swedes had apparently overestimated just how “safe” it was to handle polonium. Fisk had taken the stainless steel container, which was apparently somehow not airtight. About an hour after seeing his prisoner booked into custody, Fisk began throwing up. He had tremors and some localized burns on his hand and hip. His long-term diagnosis was uncertain, depending on the amount of cellular and genetic damage he had suffered. His relatively quick recovery boded well, according to the doctors, but ultimately only time would tell.

  Bengtson/Muhammad had not been so lucky. After losing three fingers to frostbite, he started hemorrhaging
a few weeks after his arrest due to radiological poisoning and suffered a disabling stroke. He was currently on life support, and his trial had been postponed indefinitely.

  Fisk held out his hand. Fairly steady. The tremors had continued long after the exposure, and his therapist, Dr. Flaherty, helped him see that the lingering effects were at least partly psychological. He had come back to Intel two months before but hadn’t yet been returned to full duty, working special projects and generally riding a desk until he was cleared psychologically.

  But some days—even in the late-summer heat—Fisk still found himself shivering.

  “Thank you,” said Link to the barmaid, who winked and hustled away to the next customer. Link held his credit card to his nose for a moment before returning it to his wallet. “Ambrosia,” he said, with a sigh. Then he ribbed Fisk with his elbow. “Kidding. Sweat and maybe moisturizer. I’ve never been jealous of a credit card before.”

  Fisk drank the top inch or more of his Peroni, the Italian beer a nice change of pace after the Jack Daniel’s. “This is the longest sales pitch in history,” he said to Link.

  Link shook his head, drinking his own beer, unoffended. “Not a pitch at all. Just an offer. And this isn’t just me, this is a bunch of guys, we think we can pull this off. We like your style, Fisk. We know you’ve been through hell. We’re doing this for you.”

  Fisk was skeptical. “Who do I have to kill?” he said.

  Link laughed, nodding. “Kill another swig of that beer, and I’ll tell you.”

  Fisk did as he was told.

  “Jenssen moves to Florence, Colorado, in two days. He’ll be in the supermax there, total isolation, a deep, dark hole from which he will never emerge. Nor will anyone except maybe his lawyer be able to reach him.”

  “And?”

  “Tomorrow night, there’s a window of time. Maybe as much as an hour. We can put you together with him. One on one.”

  Fisk felt icy needles enter his chest—even as he was trying to figure out this guy’s game.

  Link added hastily, “I’m not talking anything physical. You want to kick his ass, you’re shit out of luck. Can’t make that happen. But we can do this. The marshals are on board. Jenssen would have no warning.”

  Fisk snuck a look at his hands. No shaking.

  Link said, “ ‘Closure’ is such a bullshit word. You’re never gonna get that. This guy took your lady. Even if you did take him out—fantasy talk here—as good as that might feel in the moment, it gets you nothing. But sitting before him, eye to eye . . . with no pretenses. No cameras. No judge to play to. Nowhere for him to hide. Sit with him as you sit here with me.”

  Fisk was shaking his head.

  “Don’t say no yet.”

  “No,” said Fisk. “You just said, it gets me nothing. Nothing.”

  “I think what it gets you is up to you.”

  Fisk put his hand around his cold glass of beer, but did not drink from it. “And? What’s it get you?”

  “So suspicious,” said Link, taking a drink. “I’m being up front about wanting to do this for you. Will we be listening? You can assume we will.” Link gave a cursory glance around the immediate area for eavesdroppers. “Jenssen is a very disciplined guy. But he’s also a braggart. Big ego. And it was kind of mano a mano between you two. You kicked his Swedish ass. Took him apart like a chest of drawers from Ikea. So, sure, Jenssen could be off his game here, knowing the future he’s facing. His last chance to bark and be heard. Maybe he’s holding something big back? Maybe it slips? Maybe it’s a name, or some little detail? Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe we do you this solid for exactly the reason I’m giving you. Because you earned it.” Link knocked once on the table. “Catharsis, man.”

  Fisk just wanted to finish his beer and get out of there now. “No,” he said. “Appreciate the offer.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Fisk walked ten blocks with his phone in his hand. He had Dr. Flaherty’s number, or at least her answering service. She had told him many times to call if ever he needed counseling, and he had never taken her up on it, never even come close. This didn’t feel like a crisis necessarily, but at least something he should raise with her.

  Did I do the right thing?

  But hitting Send, connecting that call, was a line he was loath to cross. And why did he need her to tell him what was right and what was not? And she wouldn’t decide that for him anyway, she would insist that he answer his own question, which was what he was doing right now.

  What would you hope to gain from sitting with Jenssen?

  So the therapy had indeed been a success: Dr. Flaherty had taken up residence inside his own head.

  So had the booze. What was he really doing here? He was calling her to tell her what he had done. He was calling to say, I am fine. I did the right thing.

  He was calling for her approval. He was acting for the therapist in his head. He was doing what he thought she would want him to do, what he thought would please her.

  Fisk stopped in the middle of crossing the street.

  What would please Krina Gersten?

  Hers was the only voice he needed to satisfy.

  The voice Jenssen had silenced.

  The car horns came into his consciousness only gradually. Drivers yelling at him to get out of the way, calling him a drunk.

  He was not drunk. He reached the curb and looked at his hand, the one holding the phone.

  The phone screen was still and readable.

  His hand was not trembling. His mind was clear.

  He knew what he was going to do.

  He dug into his pocket for Link’s card, cleared Dr. Flaherty’s number, and started dialing.

  CHAPTER 10

  July 23

  Nacimiento de los Negros, Mexico

  Nacimiento de los Negros meant Birthplace of Darkness. “One hell of a name for a village,” said MacClesh.

  The little town was situated several miles off State Road 20, a loop of empty highway circling around a desolate upwelling of mountains that had no name on Cecilia Garza’s map. It was a road that led, in essence, to nowhere—the country dry, stony, empty.

  “You’re too poetic,” said Cecilia Garza, seated next to him. “The village was founded by a group of escaped slaves from the United States. They came here about one hundred and fifty years ago. The people here still consider themselves to be black.”

  Four Policía Federal vehicles pulled into the center of the town, stopping in a cloud of dust. Everyone piled out. The center of town—such as it was—consisted of a few open-air stores, a stucco church, and several acres of packed, weedy dirt surrounding a statue of the Virgin. The pedestal on which the Virgin stood was badly cracked and canted forward a little, so that even the Virgin looked as though she were preparing to break into a run.

  Two dozen people in the streets surrounding the square all stopped. Men wearing cowboy hats and boots, women carrying string bags full of dried beans and rice and meat wrapped in bleeding butcher’s paper. They all stared apprehensively. But unlike the Virgin, they showed no impulse to flee.

  Garza watched MacClesh walk around the square, his thumbs in his belt. He sized up each of the citizens, then approached perhaps the oldest man, hatless, his skin darkened by the sun. He had a weather-beaten face, curly hair, and what at first looked like a sizable facial tumor but was in fact a large plug of chewing tobacco lodged inside his left cheek.

  MacClesh looked at the old man. “Those are some very fine boots, señor.”

  The old man looked down at them as though he didn’t realize he had them on.

  MacClesh said, “I am ashamed to compare them to my own.”

  MacClesh showed him his—and the old man flinched, as though he thought he was about to be kicked.

  MacClesh smiled at the old man. He stepped closer to him—almost close enough to touch his forehead with the brim of his hat.

  “You know why we’re here,” said MacClesh.

  The old man spit tobacco juice on the grou
nd between the toes of his fine boots, but did not answer.

  MacClesh smiled again, then stepped back. This left enough room between them for another of Garza’s men to step up and punch the old man in the stomach.

  It wasn’t a hard punch, out of respect for the man’s age. But it was more than enough to double him over.

  The old man dropped to his knees, bending forward until his forehead touched the dusty ground.

  Garza preferred to let her men operate without her direct instructions. She did not like to be the mother hen. Nor did she care for their predilection toward casual violence. But it was a part of the macho culture of the PF, and Garza had to be judicious about interfering with it. So when she stepped in here, she did so not with the appearance of ending the violence, but of capitalizing on it.

  “Pick him up,” she said.

  Two men grabbed him, one at each armpit, and hoisted him to his feet. His face was empty, though he was gasping for breath. The lump in his cheek was gone. A string of amber saliva stretched across his dark chin, in contrast to the powdery oval of white dust on his forehead.

  The brown plug of tobacco lay in the dirt. Next to it, a device that had fallen out of the old man’s pocket. It was a cell phone.

  “His phone, please,” said Garza.

  Garza stood before the man. She did not smile, she did not play the “good cop.” She did not indulge any of her femininity. She was not soft. This was about finding and stopping a violent murderer.

  One of her men placed the old man’s phone into Garza’s hand.

  “There are no secrets in this world, señor,” she said to the old man.

  The old man’s eyes, damp from the force of the punch, looked off toward the Virgin.

  “There are satellites in the sky, airplanes with cameras, helicopters, radar. Even these . . .” She waggled the man’s cell phone in the air in front of his face. She brushed off the whitish dust. It was the latest model, immaculate, much nicer than the phone she carried. “We track the radio waves that come out of them. You, me, Major MacClesh—all of us—we have American machines that tell our exact locations right down to the millimeter.”