Cold Spectrum

by Craig Schaefer

  “You voting we kill him?” Jessie asked.

  “No.” Aselia’s shoulders sagged. “Because he’s right. For now, at least, we need him. The question is, can we trust him?”

  She looked to Jessie. Jessie looked to April.

  “Let’s consider his drives,” April said. “Survival, first and foremost.”

  “And his family?” Jessie asked.

  “If he has one. That mention of his wife and daughter may have been real, or it may have been crocodile tears. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If we subvert Vigilant Lock from within and allow him to retain his post—as well as his life—it means more security for him. He’ll have more power and influence without Ben Crohn standing over his shoulder, too. On the other hand, what does he get if he betrays us?”

  “Ben Crohn standing over his shoulder,” I said. “Forever. And a lot more work. He’ll have to recruit yet another new team, put up with more meddling from above, and probably deal with—and it makes my skin crawl just saying this out loud—Special Agent Mikki.”

  Jessie winced. “Yeah, let’s not make that a thing.”

  “Supporting us is the path of least resistance and greatest reward,” April said. “Linder’s not political. He’s barely moral. He has no ideology, beyond patriotism, to interfere with his self-interest. This makes him dangerous, but it also makes him predictable. We can’t trust him, but we can trust his pattern of behavior.”

  “So that’s a vote for letting him walk,” Jessie said.

  “A reserved yes.”

  “Harmony?” Jessie asked me.

  I had to think about that.

  Linder wasn’t the only one with survival on the brain. We’d been hunted, hounded, and it felt like the entire world was closing in over our heads like the teeth of a bear trap. I was tired, more than anything, and I didn’t see anything but more danger, more struggle, more death ahead of us. Putting a bullet in Linder’s brain would be quick. Easy. One obstacle done and gone. Nobody could say we wouldn’t be justified.

  But I’d been around long enough to know one thing for certain: the easy choice is almost always the wrong choice.

  “We’re taking a risk, keeping him alive,” I said, “but I think we’re taking a bigger one if we don’t. I say we let him live.”

  “I hear you,” Jessie told me. “Kevin?”

  Kevin shrugged. “He can do things we can’t. I’m not joining the guy’s fan club anytime soon, but I think we need him. It’s your team, boss. Your call.”

  Jessie hooked her thumbs in her pockets, nodding slow, taking everything in.

  “Linder gets to keep breathing. For now.” She glanced at Aselia. “So, you staying on board? No obligation. Once we take out Crohn and his buddies, nobody’s gonna be hunting you anymore.”

  Aselia spread her open hands. “What am I gonna do, get a civilian job? It’s not like I can put ‘clandestine ops and pot smuggling’ on a résumé. Besides, for all the shit we saw in Cold Spectrum, all the horrors we had to wade through . . . I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it a little.”

  “You’re gonna fit right in,” Jessie said. “Welcome to Circus Cell.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Wait a second. Circus? That’s your team designation?”

  “Yeah, it’s . . .” Jessie’s voice trailed off. Then her eyes lit up. “You know what? We’re calling the shots now. Time for a name change.”

  “Dragon Cell!” Kevin said. Jessie clapped his shoulder.

  “Bless your nerdy little heart, but no. C’mon, let’s go back inside and break the good news. We’ve got a mission to plan.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “We did the math,” I told Linder.

  He raised his slumped head, his face still a stoic mask, but he couldn’t hide the glimmer of relief in his eyes.

  “I had every confidence that you would,” he said.

  “We’re going to New York,” Jessie said. “Chasing those contracts down so we can force Crohn to call off the dogs. There anything else you can tell us? Anything that might help?”

  “I don’t know where you’ll find the contracts,” Linder said, “but I know who’s on your heels.”

  “Panic Cell,” April said.

  Linder nodded. “When we reformed this program as Vigilant Lock, we intended each cell to be highly specialized. Beach Cell was primarily intended for scientific field support, for instance. Investigation fell to you and Redbird Cell. Panic Cell was for . . . heavy removals. They don’t investigate—they eliminate. It’s a twelve-man team—though I believe you’ve already cut down their numbers a bit—all culled from US special forces. They operate from a mobile base: a C-130 cargo plane outfitted with a command-and-control suite.”

  Jessie loomed over him, her mouth hanging open. “We have to rent compact cars and submit receipts for motel rooms, and you’re telling me you gave these motherfuckers their own jet?”

  “I didn’t, no. Unlike the other cells, Panic’s members were hand-selected by Director Crohn. They enjoy considerably more funding than the rest of you.” Linder gave a wry smile. “Benefits of being the teacher’s pets.”

  “C-130 isn’t a jet,” Aselia muttered. “It’s a turboprop with optional jet-assisted takeoff. Still a dick move, though.”

  “Unlike you,” Linder continued, “and the members of Beach and Redbird, the operatives in Panic know exactly who they serve. They’re incentivized and highly motivated.”

  “Satanic special forces,” Jessie said.

  Linder shrugged. “Hard to be afraid of death when you know you have a lucrative job waiting in hell. They’ve been promised treasure in the afterlife—and unlike many who have been offered such glory over the ages, they’ve actually seen theirs. They can’t be bought or turned.”

  “That leaves elimination,” Jessie said. “Them, Crohn, Mikki—they’ve all gotta go. First things first, though. They know we took you. How do we put you back without raising suspicions?”

  “I’ll handle that part myself,” Linder said.

  He wriggled in his chair, took a deep breath—then wrenched his face in pain as a loud pop crackled behind his back. He twisted his arms like he was turning a stubborn screw, then finally brought his hands around in front of him. An empty cuff dangled from one wrist, and the other was free, skinned raw and bleeding, the flesh purple where the heel of his thumb folded in like a broken accordion.

  “You left me alone to confer over my fate,” he said, his voice strained. “I dislocated my thumb to escape the handcuffs, then escaped on foot. I’ll find a phone somewhere nearby and call for help. In a half hour or so, of course, to give you a head start.”

  Kevin bit his knuckles, looking green. Jessie just shook her head.

  “God damn, Linder. We probably could have come up with a less painful story.”

  He forced a smile, still catching his breath. “They wouldn’t have bought a less painful story, Agent.”

  “We’ll be in touch.” Jessie turned, then paused, looking back. “Just so you know? You work for us now. We’re gonna be making some changes around here.”

  Linder cradled his hand against his chest and grunted an acknowledgment.

  “Time for that later,” he said. “For now, just try to survive.”

  Storm clouds trailed like wispy streaks of black ice under the Cessna’s shuddering wings. We were mobile and heading north, straight into a patch of bad weather. Two days from Halloween, and the holiday dogged my thoughts like a bad omen. Nothing to do for it, though. Nothing but steeling myself and preparing for the road ahead.

  Nothing to do but fight.

  We skirted New York City, past the spires of granite and glass, and put in at a small airfield about an hour upstate. “These are good folks,” Aselia told us. “They’ll keep quiet and give us breathing room.”

  “Is there anyone you don’t know?” Kevin asked her.

  The props spun down as we taxied into a vacant hangar, the plane rumbling over uneven asphalt. A man in oil-stained coveralls wa
ved us in, and Aselia gave him a thumbs-up from the cockpit window.

  “My transport network’s a shadow of what it used to be,” she said. “Was a time when I had somebody reliable in all fifty states. Still, I got us this far. The rest is up to you.”

  “We’re making this our base camp,” Jessie said. “Me and Harmony are going to hit the pavement. April, I want you running media sweeps. That scrap at the Washington Mall is probably on every channel: check out the coverage, read between the lines, and see if we’ve been tied to it. Also, if Ben Crohn shows his face, he might let something useful slip.”

  “If we’re lucky, Nyx killed him,” Kevin said.

  “We’re never that lucky,” Jessie told him. “I want you scanning police-band radio; we’re gonna be as low profile as we can, but if some eagle-eyed local spots us and calls the cops, I want to know before the SWAT team rolls in.”

  “I’ll be doing maintenance on my baby.” Aselia patted the plane’s yoke. “I didn’t like some of those sounds she was making when we landed. Don’t worry: when we need to leave, we’ll be ready to go on five minutes’ notice.”

  “Can you cut that down to three?” Jessie asked.

  Aselia gave her a wan smile. Then she looked away.

  Jessie put her hand on Aselia’s shoulder. “What?”

  “Douglas used to say that all the time.” Aselia stared at the console. “You met him at his worst. At his best . . . damn. Sorry. Last couple of days dug up memories I thought I’d buried a long time ago.”

  I wriggled a finger through the knot in my tie, loosening it, slipping it off. I needed to look inconspicuous. Still, I didn’t like going to battle without a tie on. It wasn’t magic, it wasn’t bulletproof, but it reminded me of my father. Buttoning his uniform shirt, putting on his polyester tie and sheriff’s star before heading out to save the day. He was immortal, until the night he suddenly wasn’t.

  The tie reminded me of everything he stood for in my six-year-old eyes. Law. Order. The right way. Maybe it was just as well that I was taking mine off. We weren’t going to get out of this mess by fighting fair. I rolled it up and passed it to Kevin.

  “We’re doing this for Douglas,” Jessie told Aselia. “And for Houston, and the rest of your team. We can’t bring ’em back, but we’ll make sure they get some justice.”

  “Crohn,” Aselia said. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and looked Jessie in the eye. “Find that son of a bitch before he finds you.”

  “That’s the plan.” Jessie glanced back over her shoulder at me and slipped her dark glasses on. “You ready to roll, partner?”

  I was ready.

  We took a commuter train into the city, bound for Queens. Winter had come early, caking windows with morning frost, turning breath and bus exhaust into curlicues of white smoke. My suit coat wasn’t heavy enough to cut the chill, and I rubbed my arms to stay warm as we hustled along a bustling sidewalk. Our first stop was a thrift shop on Greenpoint Avenue: we needed camouflage, and we needed warmth, in that order.

  When we emerged, I’d swapped my suit for a sturdy windbreaker, battered jeans, a knit stocking cap, and a cheap pair of sunglasses. Jessie opted for a gray flannel hoodie, her wiry bun tucked under the pulled-down hood. We weren’t unrecognizable, but at least we didn’t mirror the photos they were flashing on television. We’d chosen gray-and-beige colors, bland styles, nothing for anyone’s memory to latch on to. There were eight million people in New York City; sometimes there’s anonymity in numbers. We blended in with the herd and kept our heads down.

  Our next stop was the Crystal Crow. The window display was all stocked up for Halloween, a broomstick and a jack-o’-lantern sharing a dusty shelf with glass “crystal” balls and a plethora of paperbacks promising the secrets of real witchcraft. Inside the cluttered shoe box of a store, Vlad was putting on his fortune-teller routine for a couple of giggling hipster girls. He stroked his Rasputin beard, gold-plated rings glimmering on his sausage fingers, as he pored over tarot cards on a black velvet mat.

  “Ah, yes, you see. Zhis is the Vheel of Fortune, a very fortuitous card. It says you maybe find love, yes? Maybe with handsome and mystically powerful older man—”

  Standing by the door, Jessie coughed into her hand. He looked up, his face falling.

  “Sorry, sorry, ladies, but Vlad must close ze store. The spirits, zhey call him. Zhey are awed by your natural psychic abilities and think you should sign up for Vlad’s spiritual-development course, meeting every other Zhursday night—”

  We waited as he eased them out the door. He clicked the lock, flipped the CLOSED sign, and put his back to the glass. When he spoke again, the bold Russian mystic magically transformed into a native of Yonkers.

  “You’re killin’ me here. Swear to God, you’re killin’ me. Ain’t you been watching the TV?”

  “Good to see you, too,” Jessie said. “And no, why? See any good shows lately?”

  “Yeah. Like the one about the two FBI agents who shot up a casino. Top ratings. I hear the next season’s gonna be set in a prison.”

  “We’re working on a happier ending. We need some local intel. And seeing as you’re our local-intel guy . . .”

  Vlad tugged at his beard. “Just make it quick, okay? I’ve stuck my neck out for you plenty. I don’t need to get busted for harboring known fugitives.”

  “Help us out, and we won’t be fugitives. We need info on the Court of Windswept Razors. Who’s the court’s hound, and where can we find her?”

  Vlad gaped at her. He waved his hands, shooing us away from the window and closer to the heart of the store. The cramped shelves stank of old, dried herbs and cheap incense.

  “Are you”—he paused, lowering his voice—“are you kidding me? You want me to give up a hound?”

  “We think the hound has some contracts we need,” I said. “Or at least knows where they are.”

  “Contracts.” He stared up at the ceiling. A stuffed dragon dangled from a wrought iron chandelier. “I’m gonna get torn into itty-bitty pieces and scattered across the Hudson so you can ask a demon prince’s right hand about contracts.”

  “They’re special contracts.” Jessie flicked her fingers against his brocade vest. “C’mon, Vlad. The Razors claim New York as their turf. Don’t tell me you don’t know where they hang out.”

  He bristled. “Believe it or not, Agent Smarty-pants, I don’t. The Razors are old-school, old money. They keep their business on the down low. If they need to reach out and hurt someone, they generally use a proxy.”

  “Who’s the proxy?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I’d asked the dumbest question imaginable. “They’re called the Mafia, sweetheart. The Five Families? You mighta heard of ’em? Not everybody on the wiseguy scene is hooked up with the Razors, but they’ve got enough influence to take care of business. The hound doesn’t make personal appearances, at least not the kind anybody lives to talk about. I don’t even have a name to give you, let alone a face or a place.”

  “A hound’s job is taking care of their prince’s business,” Jessie said. “That’s no career for a hermit. Somebody talks to this person.”

  Vlad stared at his curly-toed shoes. We let him wrestle with himself in silence.

  “I might have something,” he said. “It’s a reach, but it’s something. And you gotta keep my name out of it.”

  “Vlad who?” Jessie said. “Now dish.”

  “Guy named Tonino Giannetti. Tony Four-Ways. He’s allegedly a made guy, captain of a Genovese crew.”

  “Allegedly,” I echoed.

  “Allegedly. Now here’s the facts.” Vlad tapped the base of his wrist. “He’s got a tat, right here, with the glyph of Prince Berith. Humans who are high up in the Razors’ esteem get those; it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, if you flash it at the right kind of cop. It means ‘Hell’s property, do not touch.’ Word is, Tonino is an informant for Berith’s hound. Acts as his eyes and ears out on the street.”

  “Meaning they
have to meet now and then,” Jessie said. “Where can we find this guy?”

  “If you want to catch him alone, away from his crew? Try Dashwood Abbey. Clubhouse for New York’s occult-underground scene. Watch yourself in there: that particular party gets a little too freaky for my liking.”

  Jessie patted him on the shoulder.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Until we show up, the party hasn’t begun to get freaky.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  We sat at the tail end of a half-empty subway car on hard-backed seats. A cold breeze ruffled through the train, carrying the odor of stale sweat. We kept our faces turned and our hands in our pockets. I was still worried about being spotted, but one truth about New York worked in our favor: it was the kind of place where everybody minded their own business.

  “How do you want to play this?” I asked Jessie.

  “I was thinking we could ask for a meeting.”

  I peered at her. “I don’t think the Razors’ hound is going to just hand over the contracts. Even if we ask politely.”

  “I said we’d ask for a meet,” Jessie replied. “Didn’t say we’d really show up. If we can get a line on the hound from a distance, we can follow ’em back to wherever they rest their head at night. Then we come up with a distraction, some pretext to get them back outside, and we snoop around their lair a little bit.”

  “Lair?” I asked. I couldn’t help cracking a smile. “It’s probably a mansion in the Hamptons.”

  “Still counts as a lair,” she said. “It’s not the quality of the real estate—it’s the monster inside.”

  My phone vibrated against my hip. I held it between us so Jessie could listen in. “Yeah.”