by Oliver Stark
The woman fell to her knees and looked up. He pressed the barrel of his gun to her forehead. The thin skin creased against her skull.
‘Clean my boots,’ he said.
She stared at him imploringly. He liked that look, the look of the dying animal. It pleased him.
‘I am Officer Sturbe of the SS. Now, clean my fucking boots.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brownsville, Brooklyn
March 8, 7.49 p.m.
Denise ran down Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. She ran up street after street. Pounding for mile after mile. The high-rise blocks gleaming in Manhattan started to disappear behind her. In their wake, as she passed through each Brooklyn neighborhood, things got meaner and sharper. It had felt good to get back into work, good to help the Missing Persons investigation, good to start profiling. It had been good to be working closely with Tom Harper.
The streets were full of people like her and not like her. They belonged to some different world, but she was born in Brooklyn and she enjoyed going back. Harper had triggered some deep memories.
Denise pounded up Brownsville, past stooping old black women carrying plastic bags of overpriced food from the only convenience stores that would locate outside the wealthy areas.
She turned off Riverdale and noticed a black sedan crawl past. It didn’t stop but carried on right up to the lights. Denise looked over her shoulder. She felt her heart rate rise and she noted the license plate. The car took a right at the lights. Denise looked ahead. A long empty road lay in front of her.
Denise tried to ignore it. She was running. It was what she needed. The cool air and the ache of muscles. Sweat poured from her. She needed to see the abused face of the city. She ran up through deserted lots, abandoned buildings, through housing project after housing project. The spent lives stared back at her, hard and pitiless. No one cared about no one and that meant they certainly didn’t care about you.
Faces, cold and stern, stared out at her. Old men sitting in beach chairs on the sidewalk, lazy hoods on the stoops, crackheads and hobos. Everyone just looking for the next drama.
The sedan rolled past again. It turned and then followed her up the street. The windows were blacked out, but she knew the kind of people who were inside. It was the second time the same sedan had rolled by and in Brownsville, that wasn’t good news. In the projects it wasn’t going to be a welcome party.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
March 8, 7.56 p.m.
Three cars drove at speed through the streets towards an address in Brooklyn, a four-story public housing block on the edge of an Orthodox Jewish area. They had traced Leo Lukanov quickly. He wasn’t good at hiding his tracks, especially when he’d been claiming welfare.
Harper was feeling afraid, the adrenalin pumping through his blood, since they hadn’t been able to contact Denise Levene. He’d sent a squad car over to her building, but they’d come back with nothing. She wasn’t at home or at work, and Harper didn’t know enough about her to guess at where she would be.
In the car, the team were staring out, steely eyed and focused. Harper knew what was going on inside. Eddie kept making light, but he felt it too. Levene had been targeted before. It couldn’t happen again, could it?
They parked side-by-side in a deserted lot and all six detectives got out and walked towards Leo Lukanov’s apartment. Harper directed Swanson and Greco round the back of the building. The rest headed up the stairs.
Leo Lukanov lived along a dark brown corridor with a single window at the far end. His apartment was a small one-bedroom, three quarters of the way along the corridor. As Harper and the team walked towards the door, they could smell marijuana and hear distant voices — an argument, followed by a baby crying. Harper took out his Glock and knocked on the shabby door. Kasper and Garcia had their guns out too. Gerry Ratten leaned against the wall. Harper glanced at him.
‘I don’t always carry my gun,’ he said.
Harper raised an eyebrow.
‘He makes a good shield, though,’ said Garcia.
‘Then keep a watch,’ said Harper.
Harper listened. There was no reply. He knocked again. Shouted through the door: ‘NYPD, open up!’
Nothing.
They looked at each other for a moment. Harper tried the door, but it was locked. They hadn’t had time to get a warrant through.
‘He might have left already,’ said Eddie.
‘We need to find him, quick,’ said Harper as he put his shoulder to the door and leaned his weight on it.
‘You do that and anything we find is inadmissible,’ said Garcia. ‘We need a conviction on this, Harper.’
Harper held his shoulder a second. He let the thought go twice round his mind, then he barged his weight against the door and it flipped open. ‘It’s about saving lives. Now let’s see if we can do something.’
The apartment was a hell of a mess. The smell was bad but the pictures and symbols were worse. Every wall was covered in neo-Nazi slogans and images. There was a large red and black Nazi flag, several large black crosses and slogans: The triumph of the will. The final solution.
‘He’s not sane,’ said Harper.
‘He’s sane enough to have kept out of prison,’ said Garcia.
Harper started at the desk drawers, Garcia went for the small wardrobe and Eddie started pulling out boxes from under the bed.
A moment later, Ratten walked in, licked the sweat off his mustache and twiddled his stubby fingers. He watched the frenetic search, then calmly walked up to the desktop and switched it on.
He laughed to himself. Loud enough for Harper to hear. ‘What is it, Gerry?’
‘You lot, searching like some cops out of the Dark Ages. People don’t keep their secrets under the bed any more. They keep them online.’
Mary Greco looked around the room, flicked through his bookshelves.
‘What are you thinking, Mary?’ asked Harper.
‘History books,’ she said. ‘He’s interested in fascism and there’s a few seminal texts here in the demented white supremacist line.’
‘He’s one of them, for sure,’ said Harper.
Gerry connected to the Internet and opened Leo Lukanov’s browser history. ‘Little bastard wipes his history.’ A couple more clicks and he was looking at the systems files, the temporary Internet files and Internet cache. ‘Voilà!’ he said. ‘Look at that — Leo likes to paint on the White Wall. This is his last post. He even calls himself Goering. Nice to model yourself on a mass murderer, I always think.’
‘No delusions of grandeur, then,’ said Eddie from the bed.
Gerry brought up the White Wall and started to look for posts by Goering. He found the latest thread. ‘Look at this shit. Pretty vicious.’ He read down the threads. ‘Now look at this. As soon as they get interesting, it goes into runic fucking symbols. I’ve been working on this site for a day and a half and I can’t understand it all. They use code.’
Harper stood up. ‘It’s going to take too long. If he’s out there, he might not be coming back.’ He pulled a bank statement from a drawer and looked down the list of items. ‘Gerry, keep at it and I’ll stick to paper. There are basically four locations on this list. There’s a bar he hangs out in, a pool room, a shop he goes to. There’s an ATM he frequents. I’m going to take a look with Eddie.’
Harper stopped and looked down at the bin under the desk. He lifted it up on to the desk. ‘Wait up,’ he said.
Harper pulled out eight small pieces of black card and placed them on the desk. Eddie and the rest of the crew came in close. Harper moved the small squares of torn black card around, matching up the rips. In the top corner, the word Valiance formed. Harper moved the three pieces that crossed the middle line. Two words appeared in front of them. Harper and the team stared in silence. They weren’t just words. It was a name. A name they knew well. Denise Levene.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Brownsville, Brooklyn
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March 8, 8.19 p.m.
In Brownsville, the car slowed to a crawl as it passed her, then went straight up the street. She watched it, then she turned left into a smaller street, hoping to avoid a third sweep.
She continued running through the vacant lots and low-rise housing projects surrounded by wire fences. She glanced to her side. The sedan was right there, out of nowhere. Four guys in the car. Two guys hanging out of the window, tracking her. Not gangbangers. White guys. Two she recognized as Tommy Ocks and Leo Lukanov. She looked ahead. There were no other cars on the street. No people. This was a ghost town.
‘Hey, Jew, you want to make a complaint about us?’ shouted one of them, his hands drumming on the side of the car.
‘We found ourselves a stray kike bitch,’ called the other.
‘Come on, lady, you want to stop and talk about missing Jews?’ All four men in the car laughed.
Denise stared straight ahead, her pace increasing, her heart rate speeding up. Adrenalin starting to make her muscles feel weak. Condition red just around the corner.
A baseball bat appeared through the blacked-out window in the back seat. ‘You want me to take her Jew legs out? That’ll slow her.’
‘Not yet, fool, back off,’ said Lukanov.
‘Let me take her out, man. Let’s take the bitch home and keep her for a while.’ The drumming on the side of the car intensified.
Denise kept her eyes on the road ahead. She was so scared, her legs felt like Jello — so weak and tired that she couldn’t even coordinate her strides.
‘You talk about us again, Jew, and we’ll cut you to pieces.’
The sedan drove on ahead of Denise and then stopped. Denise slowed her pace. Two guys got out of the car. They were both over six two. Tommy Ocks was dark and mean. Leo Lukanov was pale and intense. They sneered, hitched their low-slung pants, jiggled their shoulders. Behind them, the background vocals from the sedan was a low persistent abuse.
Denise was fifty yards away. Life was a fifty-yard play.
‘Hey, Jew, we’re gonna show you how to behave right.’
Denise stepped off the curb and ran across the street. The two guys jeered.
‘You want us to hunt you down? We can do that too.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Apartment, Lower Manhattan
March 8, 8.39 p.m.
Harper sat in his car outside Denise’s apartment and continued trying to call anyone who might know anything about her. He called the building manager at her apartment, her neighbors, her colleagues and her therapists, but no one knew where she might be. Denise had kept herself to herself over the last few months.
Eddie appeared at the window and handed Harper a piece of paper. ‘That’s his cell.’
Harper nodded and called Daniel, Denise’s ex-boyfriend. He introduced himself.
‘Not you again — what the hell do you want?’ said Daniel.
‘Denise might be in danger, Daniel. So let’s forget our hang-ups. Try to help us here.’
‘What kind of danger?’
‘Just answer my questions.’
‘I’ll try. What do you need to know?’
‘Denise started running after the abduction.’
‘Yeah. Obsessively.’
‘We’ve been in her apartment. Her running shoes are missing, but her cell phone was still there. We guess she’s out there running somewhere. We’ve got an APB on her. You any idea where she might be?’
‘Brooklyn, I guess,’ said Daniel.
‘Brooklyn’s a big place,’ said Harper.
‘Listen, she has a GPS wristwatch. She downloads her routes and times on to her PC. If you can get on to her computer, it’ll have all her routes mapped.’
‘That’s great, Daniel. Thank you.’
‘Let me know when you find her.’
‘Will do,’ said Harper. He called across to Gerry Ratten and sent him up to Denise’s apartment. Harper and Eddie followed closely behind. ‘Call Dispatch, get some squad cars ready in Brooklyn.’
Gerry stopped and turned. ‘Harper, you drive across to Brooklyn — I can talk you through the routes by phone. No point in us all sitting in her apartment.’
Harper stopped. ‘Yeah, let’s do that. It might save us a few minutes.’ He watched Gerry lumber into the building. ‘Let’s hope he finds something.’
‘If it’s on her PC, Gerry will find it,’ said Eddie.
Chapter Thirty
Brownsville, Brooklyn
March 8, 8.52 p.m.
Denise felt her heart pounding even faster now. It was hitting dangerous levels. She saw them head out towards her. She turned, started to run back towards Manhattan. A long way away now. Her head was hazy and confused, her vision began to tunnel.
‘Fuck you, bitch.’
The two neo-Nazis went back to the car, slipped in quickly and the driver pressed the gas hard. The car lurched off the curb, screeched as it reversed and turned.
Denise was sprinting. How long could she keep it up? After an hour’s run, not long. With her heart racing in fear, even less so. She felt her legs pounding. She could only hear the sound of her feet; all her senses had hollowed out a focus about a foot in front of her face. The sedan raced by, a hand slapped her ass, then laughter pealed ahead. The car ripped across her path, the suspension hitting the curb with a heavy clunk. Metal on concrete. Two guys jumped out. The slam of the car door. Quicker now. Closer. The last ten yards. Endgame.
Tommy Ocks smiled. His thick biceps were covered in tattoos. The sickening feeling of fear was drowning her. The debilitating fear.
‘She’s all hot and sweaty,’ called out the guy.
‘Just shoot her on the street, man. Don’t want my car messed up.’
Denise shouted but she had no voice.
‘You gonna repent, Jew? You gonna accept that you’re the inferior race?’
Denise looked to left and right. She was paralyzed and confused. There was a wire fence to her left. A small opening at the bottom where local kids slipped under to play in the abandoned lot.
‘Or I can make you repent,’ said the second guy, taking a step towards her. Denise took her chance and darted towards the fence. The two big guys lurched after her. She made it through the hole in the fence, but it was much too small for the broad-shouldered neo-Nazis chasing her. She stood. Across the vacant lot, she could see Riverdale. There were cars and people on Riverdale. She started to run.
Chapter Thirty-One
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
March 8, 8.56 p.m.
Harper and Eddie were driving fast through Brownsville.
‘Where are you?’ asked Gerry.
‘We’re coming back the same way,’ said Harper. ‘Is there no other route?’
‘This is pretty obsessive stuff, Harper. She runs the exact same route, has done for three months. She times it and tries to beat it. She’s brought her time down by twenty minutes. She’s got some strength.’
‘But she’s not here,’ said Harper.
‘Keep circling,’ Gerry told him. ‘I’ll keep looking.’
Harper turned to Eddie. ‘She’s gone off the path.’
‘Or someone made her.’
Harper felt the flurry of anxiety again. ‘I called Hate Crime. They can’t find these guys anywhere.’
Eddie turned the car and they started back up through the streets of Brownsville.
Harper’s cell went again. He picked up. It was Gerry Ratten. ‘What is it?’
‘I had a thought. If her GPS watch is sending out signals and getting pinpoint location…’
‘Can you trace it?’
‘I’m waiting. I called the company. They want a warrant. They can’t release location information.’
‘They’re sticking to that?’
‘Seems so.’
Harper hit the window. ‘Come on.’
‘So,’ said Gerry, ‘I tried a little trick or two I know.’
‘And?’
‘The watch sends
signals back to base. You can get your runs logged in real-time to share with others and race with others. I’ve signed her up for this service. It’s just loading up.’
Harper held his breath. Gerry kept them waiting. ‘It’s worked,’ said Gerry. ‘I got it live. Not quite live. But three minutes ago she was two blocks west from where you are. Then left.’
‘Let’s go, Eddie. Two blocks.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brownsville, Brooklyn
March 8, 9.05 p.m.
Behind her, she heard them curse and start climbing the fence, but Denise was fast. She was halfway across the lot by the time they jumped down. Her eyes were scanning the fence ahead. She spotted another gap, a vertical cut, and headed off to her right. She was going full speed but they were gaining on her quickly.
Five yards to the fence she felt a hand slap her back. She hurtled forward and rolled, with laughter following her. Footsteps skidding on the gravel. The gap was close enough now and she scrambled through. A hand caught her ankle. She turned over and stared at his face. His name was Paddy Ellery. He was sweating, his eyes were brimming with excitement.
‘I’m just going to hold the Jew bitch here. You jump over and help her back through.’
Denise watched Tommy Ocks move down to a post and start to climb. Paddy held her ankle hard and watched, his chest pounding. ‘God, you’re pretty for a Jew,’ he said.
Denise felt the fear subside for a moment, to be replaced by a sudden clarity. She had to do something. ‘I’m not a victim,’ she said. ‘I’m a predator.’ Her eyes peeled around. As Tommy Ocks reached the top of the fence, Denise saw a beer bottle lying on the ground. She pulled and leaned towards it, twisting her upper body, and grabbed it. She sat up and smashed the bottle on the ground. Then she jerked towards Paddy Ellery and drove the jagged edge of the smashed bottle into his arm. Ellery looked up; he didn’t seem to feel much, then he saw the deep cut and the bottle gleaming with his blood.