by Adam Hamdy
Hector shook his head. ‘We can’t risk tipping off the killer by doing anything out of the ordinary. We all know what happened at the safe house. This guy is thorough. Any questions?’
Hector paused and glanced round the room at the diligent men and woman looking back at him. No one spoke.
‘OK, let’s move out,’ he commanded.
Hale and Tanna led their teams from the room, while Hector collared Parker as he made for the exit.
‘Agent Parker, Detectives Moses and Rollins,’ Hector said, as the two NYPD detectives approached.
‘Hey,’ said Detective Moses, a trim, muscular African-American in his late forties.
‘Good to meet you.’ Detective Rollins smiled, the hard lights glinting off the top of his pasty bald head.
‘Kosinsky fed me a crock about how he got the intel,’ Hector told Parker. ‘This wasn’t some random algorithm; it came from Chris. Kate Baxter called earlier, said Chris had threatened her, and that she’d handed over her source’s email address. Same address Kosinsky gave us.’
‘You think she’s going to be there?’ Parker guessed.
Hector nodded. ‘She won’t risk exposing Wallace to the killer, but I know Chris, she’ll have eyes on us to make sure we get the guy. I’ve given Detectives Moses and Rollins photos of Chris and I want you guys to find her. And when you’ve found her, you’ll find Wallace.’
Wallace and Ash arrived at the Manhattan Regent Hotel just after five o’clock, as the sinking sun bathed the city in its last rays of light. The hotel was on East Fifty-Ninth Street, directly opposite the Queensboro Bridge. The brown-brick building was fifteen storeys high and abutted its neighbours. It was the sort of Midtown hotel that attracted mid-budget middle executives. A sign in the entrance welcomed guests of the Annual Fund Management Systems Awards. Wallace followed Ash along the sidewalk, straight past the entrance.
‘We need somewhere out of sight,’ Ash noted as she scanned their surroundings.
Wallace couldn’t see an obvious vantage point. Fifty-Ninth Street was hood to tail with rush-hour traffic. On the other side of the street loomed the Queensboro Bridge, a vast latticework of cream-coloured metal. Beneath it were deserted basketball courts encircled by a wire mesh fence. The river lay a couple of blocks east, and to the west were a series of stone and glass warehouses which had been constructed beneath the bridge. Between the first warehouse and the basketball court was an alleyway that was used as an unofficial parking lot.
‘Come on,’ Ash instructed as she stepped off the sidewalk. Wallace followed, and the two of them picked their way through the crawling traffic until they reached the mouth of the alleyway. Wallace’s ears throbbed with the loud rumble of slow moving traffic reverberating from the bridge overhead. He and Ash hurried along the line of parked cars that snaked along the alleyway until they reached an old Pontiac. It was covered in dust and looked as though it hadn’t been moved in months. Ash glanced around, found a strip of scrap metal among the junk that had collected beneath the bridge, and used it to force her way into the old car. The alarm sounded, but the noise was drowned out by the overhead traffic. Ash leaned into the car, popped the hood, and then bent over the engine until she found what she was looking for. With a decisive pull, she killed the screeching alarm. She climbed into the passenger seat and opened the driver’s door for Wallace, who slid in beside her. The car was parked pointing south, and they had a relatively unobstructed view of the hotel, which lay to the south-east.
Behind them, to the north, lay Sixty-First, a narrow street that was clogged with traffic, and beyond its endless stream of vehicles, the other side of the road was lined with skyscrapers.
‘We’ve got three ways out of here,’ Ash told Wallace. ‘North, south, or through the basketball court.’
Wallace nodded, and rubbed his arms in an attempt to keep warm. The car was cold, but the enclosed cabin shielded them from the sharpest sting of the freezing air as they watched the hotel. After fifteen minutes, an unmarked white van parked to the east of the hotel entrance. Ash studied the driver, a grey-haired man with a severe face, wearing blue overalls.
‘OK,’ Ash observed. ‘They got Tanna. He runs one of the tactical units. Good guy,’ she told Wallace.
A few minutes later, Ash pointed at a man and woman heading for the hotel entrance. The African-American man wore a grey suit and was about six feet tall. His pale companion had long dark hair and was only a couple of inches shorter than him. She wore a full-length coat and black boots.
‘Alexis Hale and Lance Nelson,’ Ash remarked. ‘They’re keeping it low key. Getting the team into the hotel in twos and threes. That’s how I would have done it.’
Wallace could tell that Ash longed to be at the heart of the action, and noticed her stiffen when she spied a dark-haired man walking towards the hotel.
‘Hector Solomon,’ Ash noted. ‘My boss. Good. They’re taking this seriously.’
Parker trudged along Fifty-Ninth Street, checking the buildings west of the hotel. He pounded his feet trying to keep warm as he scoured the windows of the adjacent skyscrapers. Moses was checking the buildings east of the hotel and Rollins was canvassing the warehouses under the Queensboro Bridge. If Ash is here, Parker thought, we’ll find her.
Hector Solomon sat in the contemporary lobby of the Manhattan Regent and listened to communications via a concealed earpiece. Hale had deployed her team in pairs, each working a different floor. The general manager had provided them with master keys to access any unoccupied rooms. It was going to take some time, but they would work through each floor to check the wellbeing and identity of every single guest.
The lobby was starting to fill up with people attending the fund management event. Tuxedo-clad men gathered under the sparkling chandeliers with women in expensive evening dresses, as waiters circulated with trays of drinks and canapés. Hector had asked the general manager to instruct hotel security to search people entering the hotel, and was pleased to see a line of guests waiting to have their bags checked by a team of three liveried guards.
Ryan Silver stood on the corner of Fifty-Ninth Street and First Avenue and studied his friends’ faces. Cassie, her face hard and unforgiving, looked ready to take on the world, as usual. Nate wasn’t wearing enough clothes and his scrawny body was shivering as the ferocious wind whipped through the city. Lonnie was nervous, but was too stubborn to admit it; as the biggest guy in the group, he had a reputation to protect. Only Wade, the wiry little weasel, was wearing his fear on his sleeve.
‘I don’t know, man,’ Wade whined. ‘We’ve never done anything like this before.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Wade,’ Lonnie admonished the little man, his long coat whipping in the wind. ‘Bail if you ain’t got the balls for it.’
‘You’re always bitchin’, Wade,’ Cassie added sourly.
Ryan checked his watch. It was past seven and Ramon was late. Ryan fingered the contents of his coat pocket nervously, aware that they were supposed to hit the place at seven. He scanned the street in frustration.
‘There’s gonna be people,’ Wade complained. ‘Witnesses.’
‘The guy said he was a recruiter for the Foundation, Wade,’ Ryan barked. ‘They don’t fuck around.’
‘This is war, man,’ Lonnie added. ‘We gonna do this or what?’ he asked Ryan.
Ryan checked the street one last time. Sorry, Ramon, he thought as he started walking along Fifty-Ninth Street.
‘Let’s go, people,’ Lonnie told the group, and they all followed in Ryan’s wake.
Ryan looked over his shoulder and saw his friends casting nervous looks at one another. They might be scared, but they believed in their cause, and that belief made them unstoppable.
Parker had been out on the street for an hour. He’d checked hundreds of windows for any sign of Ash, but had found nothing. He’d seen Rollins popping in and out of the warehouses, and envied the man the respite of their warm interiors. Parker had one more building to check; the skyscraper directly adjacent to t
he hotel. He looked across the street and saw Rollins heading into the last warehouse. It was then that Parker noticed the line of cars parked in the alleyway that ran beneath the Queensboro Bridge.
‘Do you think he saw us?’ Wallace asked, crouching beneath the dash.
Ash had dropped into the passenger footwell, and responded with an anxious look.
‘Hey, Rollins,’ Parker said into his concealed microphone.
‘Copy,’ Rollins’s voice filled Parker’s ear.
‘You want to check the cars in the alleyway?’ Parker suggested. ‘I think I saw movement.’
He saw Rollins shrug. ‘Sure,’ Rollins said, turning away from the warehouse and starting towards the mouth of the alleyway.
Parker tried to cross the sidewalk, but almost collided with a group of kids who were covered in tattoos and piercings.
‘Sorry,’ Parker offered, but he was met with cold, hostile looks. The guy at the front of the pack wore a one-percenter T-shirt beneath his Abercrombie jacket. Parker waited for the group of angry young trust fund anarchists to pass before continuing towards the street.
Fucking asshole, Ryan thought, as the guy in the suit passed behind them. He’d been eyeballing Ryan’s T-shirt: Fuck the one-percenters and their army of wage slaves.
‘OK,’ Ryan told his friends. ‘It’s time.’
As he approached the hotel entrance, Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out the mask.
NYPD would’ve shut the block down, Rollins thought to himself as he shone his flashlight through the windows of the first car in the alleyway. Feds think they’re all that, but the NYPD are the ones who always get the job done. Come in force, bring the pain, catch the bad guys, and go home again. Life can be that simple if you let it, Rollins mused as he moved on to the second car, which was empty. Fucking waste of time, he thought as he continued along the alley.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Ash whispered. ‘I think he’s a cop.’
Wallace peered over the dash and saw the bright light of the torch held in the short, bald man’s hand. The guy was checking the cars up ahead of them, and was no more than eight vehicles away.
Parker looked right to check for oncoming traffic and was about to cross the street, when he caught a glimpse of a black mask that matched the description given by Wallace and Bruce Morton, the homeless man who’d witnessed Ken Pallo’s murder. Parker didn’t see it for longer than a split-second, but he was sure the mask was on the face of the guy wearing the one-percenter T-shirt.
‘Hey,’ Parker yelled, but his voice was lost beneath the sound of passing traffic.
The group of kids started running towards the hotel entrance.
‘Command, I’ve got eyes on the suspect,’ Parker spoke into his radio as he broke into a sprint. ‘He’s coming into the hotel hard and fast.’
Rollins turned to face the hotel and saw a group of people steam up the steps towards the hotel doors.
‘I see them. I count five heading for the main entrance,’ Rollins yelled into his radio as he started running.
Wallace felt his body sag with relief as he saw the fat man with the flashlight running away from them.
‘We got lucky,’ he said to Ash, who shook her head in disbelief.
Wallace was startled a moment later, when a hooded figure collided with the car as he ran past, sprinting down the alleyway at full pelt. The man must have been a full twenty yards away when he glanced back. Wallace froze when he saw the mask of his killer.
Ash was moving the moment she saw it. ‘Wait here,’ she instructed Wallace as she jumped out of the car. She drew her pistol and raced to catch the hooded figure.
Hector Solomon was on his feet, moving across the lobby, gun in hand.
‘Get these people out of here!’ he yelled at the security team. The lobby erupted in pandemonium as dozens of guests saw Hector’s pistol and started to scatter, screaming.
Hot breath had misted the goggles that covered Ryan’s eyes and he couldn’t see properly. He hadn’t fitted the mask correctly, but had no time to fix it. They’d come here to do a job and their work had already begun. They weren’t even through the glass doors, but Ryan could already see people fleeing in terror. The one-percenters and their slaves were weak, and soon they would be cowed by brave men and women who were determined to end injustice.
He put his hand to the brass doorplate and pushed.
With people scattering all around him, Hector struggled to get a clear line of sight. Panicked faces flashed past the end of his pistol. Beyond them, Hector saw the main door swing open.
‘Freeze!’ Parker yelled, his pistol levelled at the big guy at the back of the group. All around him pedestrians ran for cover, and the big guy in the long black coat turned to face Parker. He was wearing the black mask of the killer.
When Ryan stepped into the lobby, he realised he’d made a terrible mistake. The last of the guests had fled, leaving him to face a hard-eyed Hispanic guy who had a pistol levelled in his direction.
‘Put your hands up,’ the guy yelled.
‘I said put your hands up!’ Hector repeated. The guy in the mask was frozen to the spot. Behind him Hector could see four or five other people all wearing replicas of the Pendulum Killer’s mask.
‘I’ve got you covered,’ Rollins told Parker, as he reached the hotel steps. He had his pistol trained on the big guy in the long coat.
Parker nodded and produced a pair of cuffs as he approached the masked group. Rollins looked up the street and saw the Bureau’s tactical unit racing towards them.
Fucking subway, Ramon thought as he sprinted along the alleyway. He reached the intersection with Fifty-Ninth Street and stopped dead. The sight of his friends robbed him of any desire to join them. They were surrounded by men in black body armour, the letters FBI emblazoned on their backs. The FBI agents were mustering Ryan and the others at gunpoint, and Ramon knew he needed to get away. As he reached up to remove the mask Ryan had given him, Ramon was knocked senseless.
Ash looked down at the fallen figure and wondered whether she’d hit him too hard. There was blood on the butt of her pistol and when she knelt down and pulled his hood back, she could see more of it glistening in his hair. She glanced at the hotel and saw Tanna and his tactical team taking a group of people into custody. As she looked closer, she noticed that they were all wearing the same masks. With a growing sense of dismay, Ash pulled the mask off the man at her feet. A young Hispanic kid’s face stared back at her, his dazed eyes full of fear.
‘Please,’ he said weakly. ‘Please don’t kill me.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Ash demanded.
‘It’s a protest. We were just going to throw paint,’ the kid whimpered.
Ash trained her gun on him as he reached into his pocket and produced a handful of water bombs. One of them fell to the ground and burst in a splash of red.
‘Shit!’ Ash sensed movement but did not turn quickly enough, as a heavy, strong arm knocked the pistol from her hand.
She looked up to see Pendulum looming over her. She tried to stand, but was smacked down by his heavy fist. She heard the dull thud of suppressed gunfire emanate from Pendulum’s pistol, and saw the Hispanic kid’s body shudder with the jarring impact of the shots. Ash scrabbled on the ground, and looked desperately towards the hotel where her colleagues were preoccupied with a group of masked kids. She turned and glanced along the alleyway where she saw Wallace slumped over the Pontiac’s steering wheel, a trickle of blood running down his temple. Ash tried to stand, but a heavy boot kicked her flat against the icy ground. She started to scream, but was silenced by a rag, and, as an acrid chemical flooded her nose and mouth, her body wilted. Reality grew distant, and her heavy head rolled towards unconsciousness. The last thing Ash remembered was the sensation of being dragged into darkness.
46
A wave of nausea washed over Ash as she came round. She vomited, and then, when her stomach had finished its somersaults, she forced herself to her
knees. The first thing she noticed was the blistering wind. They were high up, and the immediate horizon was unbroken, which meant they were on the roof of the tallest building in the area. She could see the Empire State and the Chrysler Building to the south-west, and judging by the distance, they were still near Fifty-Ninth Street. She looked behind her and saw Pendulum standing several feet away, holding a suppressed pistol pointed in her direction. He wore heavy black boots, black leather trousers and black body armour over his torso. A black mask covered his face and his eyes were capped by round, opaque black goggles. A full-length black leather coat fluttered in the wind, its purple satin lining catching the moonlight.
‘Wake him up,’ Pendulum instructed, gesturing at a figure slumped a few feet away from her.
As she crawled across the concrete slabs lining the roof, Ash desperately tried to place the man’s accent, but there was nothing distinctive about it. He sounded well-spoken, but could have been equally at home in London or New York. She was relieved to see Wallace’s face, and immediately put her fingers to his neck to check for a pulse. Satisfied he was still alive, she gently patted his face. Wallace’s eyes opened suddenly, and his first reaction to the world was exactly the same as Ash’s; he rolled over and heaved.
‘You knew we were coming,’ Ash said to the killer. ‘The email account was bait. You knew how I’d react when you exposed my past.’
Pendulum was ominously silent.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Wallace asked angrily.
The killer was impassive.
‘Tell me why!’ Wallace yelled. ‘Why did they have to die? Why did Connie have to die?’
‘There is a cell phone on that vent,’ Pendulum said, indicating a metallic structure that protruded from the roof.
An enraged Wallace started to rise, but Pendulum gestured with his gun. ‘Stay down,’ he commanded, and Wallace reluctantly complied.
‘I want you to make a call,’ Pendulum said to Ash. ‘Slowly,’ he added, as Ash got to her feet.
As she walked towards the vent, Ash looked over the edge of the roof and saw the unmistakeable cream steelwork of the Queensboro Bridge. To her left was the East River, and beyond it, the spotlit red and white chimneys of the Ravenswood Power Station belched high clouds of dark steam into the clear night sky. They were on the north side of Sixty-First Street, directly opposite the Manhattan Regent Hotel. Ash didn’t know the name of the building, but she surmised that they were on the roof of the new smoked glass tower that overlooked Sycamores Park. A dangerous idea began to form in her mind.