by Adam Hamdy
Ash hit the spacebar, stopping the voice recorder on her laptop. The clock in the bottom corner of the screen said 22:07. Wallace had been talking for almost two hours, chronicling his story. Ash couldn’t help but be impressed by the guy; most people would have been broken by his experiences. He’d choked up when discussing Connie, and Ash could see that the guilt of getting her involved was eating away at him. She’d tried to help Wallace see that the weight of the crime should fall on the killer, but his perspective was twisted by love, and, more than most, Ash knew how dangerous that was.
Wallace stood up, filled a glass of water from the faucet and drank deeply.
‘Have you got any theories yet?’ he asked.
‘We can’t be certain that Bonnie Mann was killed by the same person, but if she was, the killer could be a vigilante attacking people he believes have committed crimes: gambling, perversion, drug dealing,’ Ash replied.
‘I haven’t done anything like that,’ Wallace protested.
‘It’s one of a number of possible theories,’ Ash added. ‘We’re looking at whether there have been other hangings that we’ve missed. More victims might give us a pattern, something to connect you all.’
‘How long do I have to stay here?’ he asked wearily.
‘Till we catch the guy,’ Ash replied, shutting down her computer. ‘Maybe longer, depending on the trial risk. You want us to call anyone? Family? Work?’
Wallace shook his head, and Ash immediately felt sorry for him. Here he was, having lived through three murder attempts and a brutal stay in Rikers, stuck in WitPro in Brooklyn, an isolated alien in an unfamiliar land.
‘Listen, I gotta go,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Big day with my new boss tomorrow,’ she added sarcastically, before pulling her card from her jacket pocket. ‘Hill and Perez cover nights. They’ll introduce you to the guys on the day shift. Marshals are pros. They’ll look after you, but if there’s anything you need, just give me a call.’
‘Thanks,’ Wallace replied as she handed him the card.
Ash picked up her laptop and walked out of the kitchen, to find Perez watching basketball in the living room; the NBA Allstars game.
‘Who’s winning?’ she asked.
‘One-twenty, one-fourteen, West are six clear.’ Perez didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
Wallace had followed Ash out of the kitchen and seated himself on the couch.
‘You’re in good hands,’ Ash smiled.
‘He is,’ Perez replied emphatically. ‘Now will you get out of here? You’re ruining the game.’ He grinned broadly.
‘Stay safe.’ Ash left the men watching the game and stepped outside to find the snow still falling, and her car covered by a thick drift. She waved to Hill, who sat in the warmth of the Crown Vic. Every inch the old-fashioned gentleman, he jumped out and helped Ash clear her car. They were both shivering by the time they’d finished.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I owe you a drink.’
‘I’m a married man, Agent Ash,’ Hill joked. ‘So I’ll take hot sex over a drink any day.’
‘You ever learn the word harassment?’ Ash asked as she opened the driver’s door.
‘It’s my motto, baby,’ Hill laughed, returning to his car. ‘I can grab ass with the very best of them.’
I’m just one of the guys, Ash thought as she slid into the Taurus. If only they knew.
37
‘We gotta get out there an’ fight these assholes on the ground,’ the irate voice said. ‘Bombin’ ain’t workin’.’
Hill loved late-night talk radio. Hard-boiled common sense that no politician had the guts to articulate. He shifted in the seat to prevent his butt from falling asleep and turned down the heater. Even in a thick snowstorm it was possible to be too warm. He checked the safe house. The lights had gone out just after two a.m., but there was a slight glow from behind the living room drapes; Perez was probably still watching TV.
Hill picked up the radio mic. ‘Dispatch, this is special unit USM twelve, checking in,’ he said.
‘Copy, USM twelve,’ acknowledged the male dispatcher sitting seven blocks away in the 84th Precinct.
Hill replaced the radio mic and rolled the window down a crack. Condensation was starting to form at the top of the windshield. The snow was bad enough, he didn’t need any additional visual impairment. When he leaned over and used his sleeve to wipe the right side of the windshield, he heard the sound of a heavy stone dropping into a puddle and realised that a bullet had pierced the windshield and buried itself in the driver’s headrest. He dropped beneath the dash as two more shots popped through the windshield and hit the seat above him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Hill thought as he grabbed the radio mic. ‘Dispatch, this is USM twelve,’ he said urgently. ‘Shots fired. Shots fired. I’m taking fire.’ Hill couldn’t hear the reports, and assumed it was a suppressed weapon.
‘Copy that, USM twelve,’ the disembodied voice replied calmly. ‘All units, all units, we have reports of shots fired at two-one-four Hunts Lane. All available units converge on two-one-four Hunts Lane.’
Hill pulled his Glock from its holster and peered over the dash. He saw the muzzle flash of a gun on a roof at the end of the street. He ducked as the fourth bullet shattered the windshield, showering him with broken glass.
Perez woke with a start. He wiped a slick of drool from his chin and looked around. The television was playing an infomercial about a portable air fryer. When Perez pulled himself out of the armchair, he heard an indistinct noise, like a snake’s hiss followed by a pop. He went for his radio, but there was nothing on his belt – shit, I must have left it in the john. Feeling all kinds of wrong, Perez raced to the window and pulled the drapes. Hill wasn’t in the car and shattered pieces of the windshield hung in the frame. Perez sprinted to the front door and opened it.
‘Pey!’ Perez called across the street. His yell was rewarded with two bullets driven into the brickwork around the door. Perez caught the firelight on a roof at the end of the street and pulled his pistol, aiming the Glock high. He didn’t have any chance of hitting the target at that range, but it would scare whoever was up there and wake the neighbourhood. Perez started firing and running at the same time. He was halfway across the street when the Crown Vic’s passenger door flew open. Hill was pressed against the footwell. Perez stopped firing as he slid for cover behind the passenger door.
Wallace prayed the noise came from his nightmare. He rolled out of bed and crossed the bedroom to the window. As he drew the drape an inch away from the wall, he heard the familiar sound of gunfire. He looked down into the street and saw the young marshal crouched behind the car door, shooting at something through the shattered window. Wallace followed the line of fire and saw something on the roof of a warehouse at the far end of the street. The familiar dark silhouette vanished as muzzle fire blew out Wallace’s night vision.
Perez heard the pocked thuds of bullet driving through metal and whomping into the snow around him.
‘Fuck!’ Perez yelled. ‘APs! We gotta bail!’
Hill looked at him and nodded. Perez could hear the sound of distant sirens.
‘We get to the house. We hold it until they get here,’ Hill commanded. ‘I’ll cover you.’
‘On three,’ Perez replied. ‘One, two, three.’
Hill pushed his Glock over the dash and started firing at the warehouse roof. He turned and saw Perez halfway across the street, shooting wildly in the same direction. With all the gunfire, Hill didn’t even hear the shot that tore the side of his neck open and spun his head round wildly. The second shot burst the back of his skull, and he fell, lifelessly hanging half out of the car.
Perez cried out when he saw Hill die, but he didn’t stop running. He bounded up the steps to the safe house and rolled through the front door.
Horror gripped Wallace as he watched Hill’s gaping skull ooze blood all over the snow. He backed away from the window, grabbed his clothes and started to pull them on as he fled the room
.
Perez heard noise above him. He wheeled round, pistol raised, and saw the witness at the top of the stairs.
‘Get down here,’ Perez whispered.
Machine-gun fire shattered the living room window and splintered everything in its path. The firefight had woken the whole neighbourhood and police were now en route. The assailant was no longer worried about noise, he just wanted to get the job done.
As bullets shredded the living room, Perez ran up the stairs, pushing Wallace back the way he’d come.
‘Move! Move! Move!’ Perez yelled as shots tore chunks out of the stairs.
Wallace stumbled and fell on to his back as Perez bundled him clear of the stairs. He could hear sirens getting closer, but part of him knew they weren’t going to make it in time.
The gunfire stopped, and Perez hauled Wallace to his feet.
‘Come on,’ Perez said quietly.
The charred smell of gun smoke filled the corridor as Perez led Wallace towards the bedroom, but Wallace pulled him back and nodded towards the tiny bathroom. Perez shook his head.
‘No way out.’
‘Exactly,’ Wallace whispered. ‘He won’t expect it.’
Perez stared at Wallace for a moment before nodding.
They moved quietly and entered the bathroom. Perez pushed the door closed behind them and they stood silently, their ears straining to hear. The sirens kept getting louder, and the house was alive with tiny cracks and snaps as it settled after the onslaught.
The footstep was unmistakeable, a heavy tread on broken glass. Wallace looked at Perez, who nodded and raised his pistol to the door. A creak on the stairs. Wallace willed the sirens on and held his breath as he heard a footstep at the top of the stairs. He took a shallow breath and waited. There was nothing but the sound of the house and the sirens. Then a footstep and another, moving away from the bathroom, towards the bedroom.
Wallace wanted to scream as Perez pulled at the door. He peered through the tiny crack and then turned to Wallace and nodded. He opened the door and led Wallace across the corridor towards the stairs.
Wallace sensed the presence of the killer before he saw him. He looked up to discover the armour-clad man standing in the bedroom doorway, an assault rifle in his hands. Perez saw him too, and opened fire. His shots went wide, striking the wall, and the killer replied with a volley that hit Perez in the chest and head, killing him instantly.
Wallace sprinted down the stairs and ran through the open door into the street. He kept expecting to hear the sound of gunfire, but it wasn’t until he was halfway across the street that it started. The killer shot at him from the bedroom window, spraying his surroundings with bullets.
Wallace leaped over the hood of the Crown Vic and rolled on to the sidewalk on the other side. Bullets tore through the bodywork everywhere apart from by the engine; the solid block must have been too dense, even for the armour-piercing rounds. The engine screamed, hissed and eventually died, but it didn’t allow any bullets through. Wallace ignored the freezing slush around the car and pressed his back against the front wheel as the storm of gunfire continued. The sirens were very close, maybe a couple of blocks away, when the shooting stopped. Wallace was shaking, his heart pounding, his breathing rapid and shallow; the fear was so powerful it seemed as though it might tear his body apart. Connie. The word cut through everything. Connie. The thought of her dispelled his terror; if she could be brave, then so would he.
Wallace knew why the gunfire had stopped. He knew what was coming. He was pinned down, alone, and he couldn’t gamble on the police arriving in time. He had to prepare himself. He crawled along the car and pulled the driver’s door open. He hoisted himself inside and saw what he was looking for; Hill’s pistol, still in the dead man’s hand. Wallace leaned over and grabbed the gun. He wrenched it from Hill’s fingers and quickly withdrew to the safety of the sidewalk.
The sound of crackling snow told Wallace the killer was on his way across the street. Quick, rhythmic footsteps hurrying to finish a job made urgent by the piercing sound of sirens that could not have been more than a block away. Wallace wanted to shoot for the head, but he wasn’t sure of his aim. He guessed at chest height, corrected slightly the moment he saw the black horror round the car, and squeezed the trigger. Four shots hit the killer in the chest, the bullets striking hard, burying themselves deep in his body armour, and knocking him on to his back. Wallace stood and steadied his shaking hand as he aimed at the killer’s head. He pulled the trigger, but the firing pin hammered thin air: empty. Wallace seethed, wishing he had just one more shot, but his attacker was already stirring, so he turned and started running.
38
The ringer cut through the soporific fog of the Ambien. The pills were the only way Ash could steal a few hours’ sleep from her nightmares, but they made her waking moments feel heavy and polluted. She leaned across her bed and answered the insistent phone.
‘Hello,’ she croaked.
‘Ash, it’s Hector,’ the voice said. ‘The safe house has been compromised. Hill and Perez are dead.’
‘Shit!’ Ash replied, as adrenalin kicked aside the vestiges of the Ambien. ‘What about Wallace?’
‘No sign of him,’ Hector answered.
‘I’m on my way,’ Ash said.
Wallace ran until his legs had been pounded into aching submission, his lungs had been blistered raw by the glacial air and his clothes were brittle with frozen moisture. Exhausted, he slowed to a walk. The snow-covered street was silent, save for his steps. He’d raced blindly, not paying attention to direction or time, and was now on a long road that was lined with four- and five-storey brownstones. Deep powder covered the vehicles parked on both sides of the broad street and cold snapped at Wallace’s skin. He realised that he wouldn’t last long dressed in a thin top, jeans and trainers. Sanctuary beckoned in the form of a flashing neon sign that said, ‘Open’. He staggered towards the five-storey building, his speed slowing as he shuffled through the snow. His mind filled with a garbled jumble of paranoid thoughts, but he forced them all back with a single thought: survival. He started at a noise behind him and turned to see a lone car crawl across the intersection two blocks back. As it drove away, silence settled over the neighbourhood, and Wallace moved on.
The ‘Open’ sign was located in the window of the Happy Days Diner, which was situated on the ground floor of the building. Wallace staggered along the sidewalk and almost slipped as he approached the steamy entrance. He steadied himself against the handle, and then pulled the glass door open. There was a sudden rush of warm air as he stepped into a small porch that protected the diners from the extreme weather outside. He fumbled, pressing his hand against the glass partition wall for support as he took faltering steps towards the inner door. He pulled it open and lurched against the frame for support.
‘You OK, mister?’ asked the tall man behind the counter. He had thick grey hair, and narrow eyes that watched Wallace with concern.
Wallace tried to answer, but a sudden flush of heat overwhelmed him. He tried to tell himself it was a reaction to the warmth of the diner, but the heat grew ever more intense, until it felt as though hundreds of tiny blowtorches were searing his skin. Wallace gabbled unfamiliar sounds as his frozen body burned, before he collapsed against a table and blacked out.
Ash shivered in her heavy field coat. The snow had stopped, but a brutal wind ripped through Hunts Lane and whipped an eddy of powder into her face. Hill had called for assistance at 2:47 a.m. Witness reports suggested the attack had lasted no more than five minutes. Ash checked her watch: 03.53, just over an hour later, and the street was packed with people. NYPD had cordoned off most of the street and Parker was working with a squad of officers who were interviewing neighbours. Alvarez had gone to Los Angeles to lead the Pallo and Mann murder investigations, so Hector had been dragged from his bed to put a senior FBI face on the scene. Jordan Wiltshire and a couple of unfamiliar US Marshals hovered near Hector, talking in low voices. Forensics were w
orking the house, the street, and the rooftop that neighbours claimed the killer had used as his sniper’s nest. There was no sign of Wallace or the killer, but there was a state-wide all-points bulletin out on both.
Hector backed away from Jordan and wandered over to Ash. ‘Jordy’s pissed,’ Hector began. ‘Understandably so. He’s never had a breach,’ he continued, his breath clouding the crisp air. ‘He’s gonna be looking for a leak.’
‘He thinks it’s us,’ Ash responded with growing realisation.
‘Protocols guarantee anonymity. WitPro breaches are usually the result of a lapse by a particular individual.’
Ash was about to reply when her phone rang. She didn’t recognise the New York number. ‘Ash,’ she said, answering the call.
‘Special Agent Ash?’ an unfamiliar voice asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘My name is Lenny Chaskel. I run a diner on Montague Street. I got this guy here, he’s pretty messed up. I was gonna call an ambulance, but I found your card in his pocket. Figured I should check with you.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ Ash replied, feigning dismay as she stepped away from Hector.
‘You OK?’ Lenny’s voice betrayed his puzzlement.
‘I’m fine,’ Ash said, as an idea formed in her mind.
‘What d’ya want me to do?’ Lenny asked.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ Ash instructed. ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
‘Who was that?’ Hector asked pointedly, as Ash hung up.
‘My neighbour. She says one of my pipes burst. Water’s pouring through her ceiling,’ Ash lied. ‘Do you mind?’
Hector shrugged. ‘Nothing much we can do till we get the witness statements and forensics. Go do what you gotta do.’
‘Thanks,’ Ash said as she walked away. When she was round the corner and out of sight, she broke into a run towards Henry Street where her car was parked.
Montague Street was two blocks away, and Ash made it there in under a minute. She double-parked outside the Happy Days Diner and hurried inside to find Wallace on his back, unconscious. A thin man with dark hair had his ear to Wallace’s chest.