Then he headed for the stairs, pulling the .44 from his belt and thumbing back the hammer.
TWELVE
Outside, in the mist, the man in black reached the southeast corner of the two-story and paused with his back pressed against the flashing. He was breathing hard. Hard and loud.
He stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts, cursing his forty-seven-year-old body, his girth, his two-pack-a-day habit. Once upon a time he had the ability to slip up on a domicile with the stealth and silence of a panther. Not now. Not anymore. Too many highballs, too many burritos. The man in black was an old shit now with a paunch and bursitis in one shoulder and clogged arteries. Now all he had left was the longing, and the piss and vinegar to kill without hesitation.
Glancing over his shoulder, he quickly surveyed the back of the house. Everything was still and silent. So far, so good. Overhead, the dead night sky was low and dark with very little moonlight. This was good. The darkness would help. It would help with the element of surprise.
Darkness was comforting to the man in black.
He yanked the cocking mechanism on the cut-down .45 caliber rifle. It made a dull clunk that sent shivers up his back. The Ingram M10 was a very heavy weapon—over ten pounds fully loaded—and he had to grip it with both hands to keep it level. The magazine had thirty rounds in it. He raised the bead to his eyes and kept it trained on the back door…as he began to move.
It took Grove maybe ninety seconds to get back down the stairs and across the first floor to the rear of the house. During that brief transitional period, padding across cold hardwood floors, Grove found his mind racing with panicky undercurrents.
He searched his memory for the last time he had fired his weapon in the line of duty. Was it in New Orleans a year ago? Profilers rarely pulled the trigger on anybody. Profilers were desk jockeys, professors, consultants picking through the aftermath of crime and delivering PowerPoint presentations. Grove found himself wondering, after all the therapy and medication of the last year, whether he still had the steely nerves to throw down on somebody.
As Grove neared the kitchen, he lowered himself to a semi-duckwalk, staying behind the center island for cover, staying just under the angle of the kitchen windows. He gripped the Bulldog one-handed, steadying himself with his free hand on the floor. The Bulldog was a single-action pistol—meaning it required no cocking, just a simple squeeze of the trigger to fire. Grove had forgotten about this in all the excitement, and already had the hammer cocked.
The .44 was now hair-trigger ready.
Grove peered over the top of the kitchen counter. The windows revealed nothing but a black shroud of a sky and the distant tops of basswood trees and hickories swaying in the predawn breeze. Grove held his breath. Waited. Watched. Nothing out of the ordinary yet. Where the hell did that son of a bitch go?
Right then, an errant thought crossed Grove’s mind with the suddenness of a circuit breaker snapping: 9-1-1. Maura had asked him if he had called 911. Neurons fired in his brain as he thought of this and realized it was a good question. He then realized that his house’s phone had been off the hook and his cell phone had been in silent mode since eleven o’clock, and now something about it tweaked at his memory.
A shadow moved across the windows.
Time stuttered again like a broken clock as Grove watched the shadow slide toward the back door. Grove raised the gun. He leaned around the edge of the island and drew the front sight down on the vertical screen of the back door.
The figure appeared outside the door.
Grove held his breath. He cocked his head so that his one good eye was staring down the muzzle, and aimed the tiny blade of steel at the end of the Bulldog at the figure. The sight was pointing directly at the figure’s heart—a kill shot.
Grove curled a finger around the trigger…but in that millisecond before he squeezed he heard other noises out in the backyard.
Radio sounds?
The gray-haired man in the London Fog coat, three hundred yards to the west, pacing near a government Humvee, lost his patience finally and thumbed the walkie-talkie’s send button. “B-Team, move in! Now! Move in!”
“Copy that,” came the crackling reply, and the deeper shadows to the east began to shift.
Bushes trembled, and limbs bullwhipped with movement, as the Tactical group started toward Grove’s house. The gray-haired man chewed his fingernail as he watched the reconnaissance unfold in time-lapse slow motion.
“Engage only on my signal!” he barked into the radio.
“Copy.”
This all happened within the space of seconds. But just as Grove had temporarily lost his sense of time, the man in the topcoat had lost track himself. He paced and paced, his thumb poised on the radio.
He could see personnel fanning out through the woods, slithering toward the clearing along Grove’s property line. They looked like ghosts, like moving shadows against the black canvas of trees and foliage. Twigs snapped. Fabric rustled. Breaths puffed.
A Cyclone fence jangled, and the team finally emerged into Grove’s backyard with weapons raised.
The night seemed to hold its breath.
At that moment three things happened very quickly inside Grove’s kitchen. One: Grove heard another noise behind him that pierced his awareness of the footsteps and radio voices outside. It was Maura. Gasping. She had just crossed the living room, and now stood in the kitchen archway in her underwear and nightshirt. Taking one look at the armed man outside the screen door, she had sucked in a startled breath and then stood there, paralyzed with terror.
Two: The man in black opened the screen and kicked the door in with a single, efficient slam of his jackboot. It was done with such precision and decisiveness that the metal hinges simply popped like corks. The door slapped down hard, thunder-clapping on the floor in a puff of plaster dust.
Three: The Bulldog went off, the muzzle flashing in the darkness.
The blast went into the intruder’s shoulder. Maura screamed, and the man in black jerked backward, pinwheeling through the gaping doorway in a gout of smoke. His gun went flying, then clattered to the tiles.
He landed outside with an anguished grunt on the flower bed next to the porch.
Silence crashed down on the house.
Whether or not Grove willfully fired at the man in black would be the topic of much speculation—even between Grove and Maura—for months to come. The Bulldog’s hair trigger responds to the slightest pressure or the minutest movement and, of course, there was the handicapped eye. Therefore, the debate would be relegated to Inconclusive Evidence for the foreseeable future. The question of intent was mitigated by the fact that Grove, only seconds later, crouched in the darkness beside the counter, head spinning, began to realize that things might not be as they appeared.
Right now: Ears ringing, his good eye momentarily flash-blind, mouth dry from the adrenaline, he turned and rushed over to Maura, who still stood stone-frozen in the archway.
“Down! Down—get down!”
Grove reached her and literally lifted her wan, hundred-and-ten-pound body off the floor. Then he lurched behind an armchair in the living room and laid her on the carpet. She was kicking and yelling in garbled, inarticulate yelps by that point—a mixture of rage and panic.
More figures had arrived at the back door by then. They came systematically—two on each flank with government-issue assault weapons. They wore the standard black Kevlar vests and paramilitary-style night suits. Thin beams of infrared light pierced the cordite, gunsmoke, and dust. A leader called out over Maura’s protests.
“STAND DOWN, STAND DOWN! HOLD YOUR FIRE!”
Grove stayed crouched and coiled over Maura like an animal protecting its brood.
“EVERYBODY IN THE HOUSE—I WANT TO SEE HANDS UP AND WEAPONS ON THE FLOOR, PLEASE!”
Grove could not move.
“NOW, GODDAMNIT, OR WE DROP EVERYBODY WITH A PULSE!”
At last Grove managed to slide the Bulldog across the floor and on to the
kitchen tiles.
A beam of red light glimmered off it.
The leader, a broad black man, roared into the kitchen with his M10 assault rifle nose up, boots squeaking, legs wide and bent at the knees. He came over to the archway and made eye contact with Grove and Maura in the living room. “DOWN ON YOUR STOMACH NOW! HANDS LACED BEHIND YOUR NECK! NOW! NOW! NOW!”
“It’s okay, Mo, it’s okay—”
“DO IT!”
Grove did as he was told. He could smell the old carpet fibers like moldy hay, and he tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth where he had bitten his tongue at some point in the struggle. Maura lay next him. She was shivering or crying or both, Grove couldn’t tell which.
The sound of the Bulldog’s cylinder cracking open, bullets spilling on the tiles, bouncing like coins.
“CLEAR!”
Grove heard others approaching out in the backyard. Police radios. Somebody calling for a paramedic. The big black man with the assault rifle was standing over him now. “You’re Agent Grove? Ulysses Grove?”
“That’s right,” Grove grunted into the carpet.
“What the hell is going on?” Maura’s voice was reedy and thin.
“You can put your hands down now. Sorry about that. Is there anyone else in the house?”
Grove sat up, then helped Maura into a sitting position, then gaped up at the SWAT leader. “Are you ATF?—Tactical? What are you doing?”
“Sir, is there anyone else in the house?”
“No, I mean yes…just the baby and my mother. Upstairs.”
“Is that them?”
Grove swallowed hard and gazed across the living room. At the base of the staircase, Vida was standing with the baby in her arms, looking aghast. Grove nodded, then turned toward the back door. The man in black was still lying in the flower bed, a paramedic administering CPR.
The medic pumped the man’s chest, while strands of saliva glistened, and radios crackled, and voices hollered in the distance.
“Oh, no—”
“Agent Grove—”
Grove rose on his wobbly legs and started toward the back door.
THIRTEEN
“Don’t tell me…” Grove approached the man in the flower bed. The man lay there in his black field garb, a paunchy, middle-aged Tactical officer with a receding hairline. He looked like a decent man, probably a father. A small black starburst scorched his shoulder. Grove felt his gorge rising. “Don’t tell me…shit…don’t tell me.”
The officer coughed. Once, twice…choking on his own saliva…but alive.
Grove’s eyes welled up with relief.
“He’s back,” the paramedic commented under his breath, looking into the man’s eyes with a penlight. “Normal sinus rhythm.”
Grove knelt down by the man. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”
“Get this goddamn thing off me,” the wounded man in the petunias groaned.
“Dig the slug out, somebody,” a voice came from behind Grove.
“Marty, get the slug out and bag it,” somebody else ordered. Another balding man dressed in street clothes—a sport coat with a CSI tag hanging around his neck—suddenly appeared in Grove’s peripheral vision, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves, opening a Swiss Army knife. More figures were emerging from the woods to the north, a few lab techs, another Tactical group, a few guys in suits. The noise rose around the house. Grove wiped his eyes as the balding man knelt down by the flowers and ripped open the Tactical officer’s shirt, popping three of the top buttons.
The Kevlar vest underneath was dimpled with a tiny puck of charred steel. It looked like a miniature silver egg nestled in a tiny crater. The tip of the pocketknife rooted at it for a moment until it finally wiggled free.
The slug went into a Ziploc bag.
Grove helped the man in the flower bed sit up. “You okay, brother?”
“Little bruised, little pissed at myself…but fine.” The paunchy sharpshooter looked as though he were trying to catch his breath. He shrugged off his heavy, armored vest. He rubbed his sore collarbone. “That’s the second time that goddamn thing has saved my ass.”
“I never should have—”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“Forget it.” The officer waved it off. Wiped his face. Took a deep breath. “Feces occurs.”
“Yeah, feces occurs,” Grove concurred. “What the hell are you guys doing rushing my house?
The Tactical officer took a steadying breath. “Threat of an Unknown Subject. Your phone was off the hook.”
Grove looked at him. “Unknown what?”
“Obviously we take that shit seriously.”
Grove was nonplussed. “Threat of an Unknown Subject? You mean—”
“Agent Grove?”
The voice came from behind him, the baritone growl of the group leader.
Grove spun around and looked directly into the cold, implacable brown eyes of the broad-shouldered black man. Grove gave him a deferential nod. “Yes, sir?”
“This is just a formality,” the big man said, almost apologetically, pulling a nylon strap from his belt. “Due to the shot fired, gonna have to ask you to go ahead and put your arms behind your back.”
“Excuse me?”
“Gonna have to cuff you up.”
“Um, yeah, okay…yeah.” Grove complied, turning his back to the leader, crossing his wrists against his tailbone.
Grove felt the cold nylon ribbon lick across his skin as the leader started fitting the shackle. Grove tried to gather his thoughts. He still wasn’t thinking straight, his mind still revving from the assault on his house. Threat of an Unknown Subject? Were they talking about the Mississippi Ripper? And what kind of threat?
Glancing over his shoulder at the group leader, Grove started to ask, “Does this mean—?”
A voice called out from the lawn. “What the hell are you idiots doing?”
Grove looked out at the yard and saw a group of suits approaching across dew-slick grass. They came like a brigade of bankers in their expensive raincoats and Florsheim wingtips, all of them unfamiliar to Grove…except one. The one out in front. The one with the graying temples and aging athlete’s build, the one with the angry gait of a college football coach whose team just fumbled…that one was instantly recognizable.
“Take those goddamn things off him!” Tom Geisel ordered as he approached the porch.
“Sorry, I was just—”
“You were what? You were what?” The Section Chief reached Grove and touched his shoulder reassuringly. “This man was protecting home and hearth, and now you’re gonna bust him? Take those goddamn cuffs off him.”
“No problem. They’re off.” The big man flung the nylon strap across the porch. It landed in a hedge of roses. The leader backed off.
Grove looked at Geisel. “You want to tell me what’s going on, Tom?”
The Section Chief rubbed his neck, glancing across the porch at the ruined back door. Inside the dim shadows of the house, Maura, Vida, and the baby were barely visible, huddling in the kitchen, watching wide-eyed at all the lights and noise. A uniformed policewoman stood nearby, watching over the traumatized women.
Geisel turned back to Grove. “You’re not going to like it, kiddo. Let’s go take a walk.”
FOURTEEN
In the hardwood forest north of Grove’s subdivision, rays of early morning sunlight threaded down through the gauze of mist and cobwebs clinging to the trees. It was still cool in the shadows of those ancient hickories and walnuts, and the air smelled new and bitter and green along the narrow hard-dirt path. Grove wished he had brought along a jacket—he still wore only a T-shirt and jeans—but the current conversation was keeping his embattled brain occupied enough to distract him from the chill. “This contract, the original conversation that took place…what prison was it?”
“The Bureau snitch was from Southern Illinois Max in Carbondale,” Geisel replied, his collar turned up. He was using
a dry kindling branch as a walking stick. “But we don’t think the original conversation happened there. We’re leaning toward Fenster in Missouri.”
“Missouri?”
Geisel nodded. “We’re thinking it’s somebody with an old grudge. Anatoly, maybe. Kaminsky’s at Fenster, Ulysses. Maybe it’s somebody from the old Joliet gang.”
Grove didn’t say anything.
Geisel went on: “They go to some wiseguy at Fenster, and then the news spreads across the system through trustees and guards.”
Grove nodded. “Great fun for the skells and lifers, news like that.”
“Can you imagine? Gossip like that? Makes a great late-night kibbitz around the old crack pipe.”
Grove walked silently for a moment. “What about the Ripper?”
A long pause, then a grudging nod from Geisel. “We thought about that, Ulysses. It makes geographical sense but does it fit the profile?”
“Absolutely it fits. This is exactly the kind of thing our boy would do.”
“How’s that?”
Grove looked at him. “This guy is about control, Tom. It’s all about the grand gesture with this guy. Something like this…?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me, boss. This is our boy. I feel it in my bones, I really do.”
Geisel smiled then. Not a mirthful grin, but one filled with exhaustion. “Far be it from me to argue with your bones.”
Grove walked a little bit more, thinking. His stomach clenched. “Fenster has video in its lounge, I assume?”
“Yes and no. We got all kinds of surveillance tapes, but they’re sporadic. Lots of dead air, dropouts.”
“Lemme guess, the pen’s underfunded. Tax cuts chewing into resources.”
Geisel shrugged. “We’re still reviewing tapes but it’s not looking good.”
“I assume we’re interviewing guards at Fenster?”
“Yep, same problem. They’re stretched thin.”
Grove let out a pained sigh. “I hope we’re sweating the likely candidates.”
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