Mace and Karol sat side by side at the conference table in the NYPD mobile command center. Grant and Jim sat on the opposite side, and Hollander sat at the head of the table. In the rear of the trailer, two POs wearing headsets worked at stations equipped with wide-screen monitors and glowing maps. A sergeant stood at the front of the unit with his arms crossed, staring at another monitor, and the driver remained in the front seat of the wide cab.
“It’s been ten hours,” Hollander said.
“City hall is all over the commissioner’s ass because of the traffic delays,” Jim said. “You can guess whose ass the commissioner is all over.”
“That’s where federal jurisdiction comes in handy,” Hollander said.
“Craig Lindberg is giving the press corps the official version of Gomez’s escape in an hour. I should be there.”
“That should be short and vague,” Mace said.
“Do you have a better suggestion?” Jim said.
“Nope.”
The door opened near the front of the mobile command center, and Kathy Norton ascended the steps. Mace felt a surprising sense of relief.
Norton showed her ID to the sergeant, then carried her laptop over to the conference table. “I came straight from the airport. I wasn’t expecting to go through checkpoints.”
“We’re keeping them in effect for another fourteen hours,” Hollander said.
Norton looked at each seated person. “I gather you’ve had no luck?”
“All six bodies are on their way to Quantico,” Grant said.
“Special Agent Norton, Special Agent Grant,” Hollander said. “You two will be spending a lot of time together from now on.”
Norton shook Grant’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Same here.”
Hollander rose. “Deputy Chief Mint and I have meetings to attend. You all know your assignment. Let’s catch this animal before any more lives are lost, then get busy identifying the rest of them.”
Mace made sure he didn’t look at Karol as the group filed out of the mobile command center. Cold wind assailed them as they moved to their respective SUVs, facing Manhattan.
“Do you have a ride?” Mace said to Norton.
“I’m all set. I’ll see you at the squad room.”
Mace got out of his SUV in the Fifth Precinct parking lot and waited for Karol, Norton, and Grant. Karol had driven him back to Sing Sing from the O’Hearn crime scene. Now she joined him first.
“Why don’t you take an early lunch after we see what’s what?” Mace said. “We’ve already had a full night.”
Karol held his gaze. “I won’t argue. What about you?”
“I’ll grab something at the office. You take care of what you have to, though.”
“Thanks.”
The FBI agents had the same stiff walk and wore shades.
“We’re just a couple of blocks away,” Mace said to Grant.
“I know.”
They didn’t speak as they walked through Chinatown. At the building on Mott Street, Mace entered his code into the keypad and held the door for the agents. They rode the elevator to the fourth floor, and after Mace used his key card to open the door, they stood at a desk in the reception area.
An Indian woman in a khaki clerical uniform sat at the desk, speaking into a headset. No one had sat there since the task force had been formed. Multiple phone lines lit up. “Please hold for the next available detective,” she said into the phone, then pressed the Hold button.
“I’m Captain Mace. You are?”
“Nadira Endri.” The woman offered her hand. “I’ll be your weekday daytime clerical officer.”
That means three or four people will be filling the spot in total, Mace thought.
Nadira gestured at her monitor. “Right now I’m trying to cross-reference the reports on what happened in Newark while answering these calls.”
Mace introduced Karol, Norton, and Grant.
“Pleased to meet you.” Nadira pressed another button and spoke into her headset. “NYPD special task force, how may I direct your call?”
Mace led the way into the squad room. A telephone rang unanswered while Hector, Suzie, Candice, Landry, and three additional clerks handled other calls.
“Captain Tony,” Hector said. He had a phone pressed against his ear and a grid of the city on his monitor.
Mace squeezed Hector’s hand and nodded at Suzie. “Thanks for the help.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Suzie said. “But it’s a welcome change of pace, except that I’m a little tired.”
“Welcome back, Kathy,” Candice said to Norton.
“Thank you,” Norton said.
Landry hung up his phone. “Crackpots! I don’t know what it is about the full moon.”
Mace raised his voice. “I’d like you all to meet Special Agent Walter Grant. He’s been assigned to work with us.”
Landry stood and shook Grant’s hand. “Walter.”
“Walt is fine.”
Norton gestured to Shelly’s old desk. “Here’s your parking spot.”
“Thanks.” Grant set his laptop case on top of his desk.
“All calls related to Gomez are being forwarded to the front desk,” Landry said. “We’re getting tips left and right, none of them useful.”
“Gomez isn’t in the city yet,” Mace said. “He’ll wait until we let our guard down.”
“We haven’t been able to get ahold of Carl Rice, but I left a message for him.”
“He’s probably out looking for Gomez too. Or his next book deal.”
Carl sat in his rented car across the street from the Mott Street headquarters of Mace’s task force, with the engine running for heat. He had videotaped Mace, Williams, and the two suits entering the building twenty minutes earlier, and now he sat up as Williams exited the building and headed in the direction of the Fifth Precinct.
“Going somewhere, Detective?”
Setting his camcorder down, he merged into traffic and drove around the block, praying he wouldn’t lose Williams. Back on Mott, he saw her in a mass of people congesting the sidewalk. He followed her to Elizabeth Street, where she entered the parking lot of the Fifth Precinct station house. He double-parked at the corner and picked up the camera, using its zoom to locate Williams getting into an SUV that resembled the others parked among the police cruisers.
When she pulled into the street, he set the camera down and wrote her license plate number in his notepad, then followed her to First Avenue, which she took to the FDR Expressway.
“The Bronx is a long way from Kansas, Toto,” he said fifteen minutes later. He almost lost track of her in the heavy traffic, then caught sight of her exiting at Jerome Avenue. He followed her at a discreet distance, taking greater care to be inconspicuous than he had earlier. Several turns later, she pulled over to the curb near a Korean delicatessen. He didn’t bother to pick up the camera.
“Damn it,” he said.
Karol didn’t put quarters in the meter because she didn’t have to, a perk of her position. Who could afford parking fees on a cop’s salary? Inside the deli, she passed a short line. After selecting a premade sandwich, she joined the line. The Korean woman at the register made eye contact with her.
“I need to speak to your husband,” Karol said.
The woman nodded. “Five dollars.”
Karol paid her.
“Wait at the end of the counter.”
Karol moved to the end of the counter and dug into her sandwich while she waited.
A Korean man dressed in stained white work clothes came out of the back room. He rounded the counter so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice.
“You have something for me,” she said. “And I have something for you.”
Carl watched Williams exit the deli with half a sandwich in one hand. She got into her SUV, started the engine, and merged into traffic.
“What the hell are you up to?” Carl followed her around the block. She headed toward Man
hattan, and Carl frowned. A growing sensation in his gut told him something wasn’t right.
Soon they reentered Manhattan, and Williams led him back to the Fifth Precinct parking lot. Double-parking again, he watched her exit the lot and walk toward Mott Street.
Something is very wrong with this picture, Carl thought. Who drives all the way to the Bronx for a sandwich?
After recording the time in his notepad, he did a U-turn and headed back to the Bronx.
“Deputy Chief Mint is in a meeting, Captain Mace,” Mint’s receptionist said. “Would you like his voice mail?”
Norton entered the office.
“No, just tell him I called.” He hung up. “Settled back in?”
“Sure.” She threw one thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s step out for a minute.”
Mace’s gaze darted to the back of Grant’s head. “Okay.” Exiting his office, Mace leaned close to Landry, who scribbled notes in a pad while speaking on the phone. “I’m stepping out for a minute.”
Landry nodded, and Mace followed Norton through the squad room and reception area and to the elevator, which they boarded. Norton pressed the button for the third floor, and the elevator descended and shook. Mace opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head so he closed it. They exited the elevator into a hot, noisy sewing shop where scores of Chinese women sat side by side at stations. A few women glanced at them, but no one approached them.
“No one can hear us here,” Norton said.
“I don’t think anyone speaks English.”
“Things are crazy in D.C. This has mushroomed into something huge. FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security are all in on the action—even the Pentagon.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Mace said. “If they accept the existence of Class Ls, they’re not going to sit around waiting for them to be discovered. They’re going to strike first.”
“Believe me when I tell you that offices are being set up around the city—around the country—to monitor this situation. Our task force might be on the front line, but a network of these agencies knows every move we’re making, and we don’t even know who or where they are.”
“Hollander and Mint . . .”
“We may have brought down the Brotherhood of Torquemada, but there are other brotherhoods above us.”
“Grant?”
Norton shrugged. “He may be a straight shooter, but they wouldn’t have brought him in if they didn’t want him to report on what we’re doing.”
“Why are your own people spying on you?”
“Why are yours spying on you?”
Mace pictured Nadira and the other clerks who had been assigned to the task force.
“You have to assume every inch of the squad room will be bugged if it hasn’t been already.”
“Why the lack of trust?”
She gave him a frustrated look. “You tell me.”
“They’re not buying our story about what went down in Newark.”
“They may have found fur on the warehouse floor.”
“According to our story, someone came along and took the swords after we left. The fur could have gotten on the floor then.”
“Maybe it’s too pat. Maybe they don’t believe we’d have left the swords. Regardless, they don’t trust us.”
Mace worried about Gabriel. “You’re not changing your story, are you?”
“No, how can I? But none of us can, or we’re all finished. I’m talking treason, not just unemployment. I’m not worried about you, and by extension your wife, but what about Rhonda and the others?”
“I don’t know. Karol says Rhonda’s overwrought.”
“You’ve got to tell Williams to talk to her. Every move we make, every syllable we utter, we have to use caution. And we have to be in agreement about something else: we know nothing about Karol’s identity, and whatever she shares with Gabriel is on her, but you and I are to have zero contact with him. Gabriel and his people have their agenda, and we have ours. I’m sympathetic to their plight but not enough to go to Leavenworth over.”
Picturing Cheryl and Patty at home, Mace sighed. “Agreed.”
“We have to do our jobs. Gomez has to be caught or killed before his nature becomes public—preferably killed. I’m sure they would love to get their hands on him alive. If Joe Public finds out what Gomez is, this country is going to change for the worse. The world will change. Werewolves will be the new terrorists.”
“Let’s pray that’s not what we turn them into.”
Sixteen
Savana Silvestri crossed the wide entry of her home to the inside door, which she opened. In the foyer, she opened the paneled outer door.
A Mount Pleasant police officer in navy blues stood on her wooden porch. The black cruiser behind him had a yellow lightning bolt painted on its side. Mount Pleasant policed Valhalla, which had a population of less than thirty-five hundred people. The officer smiled. “Mrs. Silvestri?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I guess you heard they had a prison break over at Sing Sing. Rodrigo Gomez escaped.”
“Yes, I saw it on the news.” Savana left the TV on all day, even though she watched very little of it. She preferred keeping her house in order to getting fat.
“We’re making all the locals aware of the situation, especially you folks out in the boonies. If you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary, be sure to give us a call.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Have a nice day.” The officer turned and strode down the steps to his cruiser.
Savana closed the door and went inside. Cold air lingered around the doorway. Parting a curtain, she watched the cruiser drive off.
In almost thirty-five years of living in the colonial house, she could not recall the police visiting her before. She had been a widow for six years and had given away most of the savings of her husband, who had owned a bottling company in the hamlet. She had kept only enough to live comfortably and maintain the house. At eighty, she felt lonely. Her son and daughters had moved away long ago, and only her youngest granddaughter, Callie, who attended college at SUNY Purchase, visited her.
She passed the living room, then the entrance to the darkened dining room, and stopped at the threshold to her spacious country kitchen. Slowly, she turned back the way she had come, then crept toward the dining room. Something had felt wrong in there. She moved into the darkness, and her body stiffened.
A naked man sat at the table, his dark eyes reflecting light at her. With her heart pounding, she groped along the wall and flipped the light switch. The man, who had short dark hair and Hispanic features, smiled. Savana recognized him from the news: Rodrigo Gomez, the escaped convict. She saw in his eyes that he knew she recognized him.
Turning to flee, she heard thumps on top of the table. Gomez smashed into her back, and she cried out as she fell to the floor, his weight crushing her. What if he had broken one of her ribs? She stretched her arms before her, hoping to claw at the carpet and crawl away, even though she knew she could never escape. Then the weight upon her back vanished, and Gomez rolled her over. Ignoring his manhood, which swung above her face, she gazed at the crouching killer’s features.
“Don’t worry, grandma. I’m not going to eat you.” Gomez pulled her upright so that her gaze met his. “Your meat is probably too tough and grizzled anyway.” His breath reeked.
Gomez shoved Savana into one of the dining room chairs. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill you. I probably will. But I’ll keep you around long enough so you have a chance to change my mind.”
Savana swallowed. “What do you want?”
“What does any man want?” He looked around the room. “Shelter. Food.” He stroked her wrinkled cheek. “A good woman by his side.”
She turned her face away, and he chuckled.
“Who’s this handsome devil?” Gomez picked up a framed photo on a shelf.
“My husband, Henry,” Savana croaked. “He went to the store. He
’ll be back any minute.” Maybe Henry could still save her . . .
Gomez set the photo down. “You’re lying. Your husband’s been dead for six years. I didn’t stumble in here by accident. It’s just you and me on this cold winter’s day.”
“Would you mind putting some clothes on?”
He turned his body toward her. “I’m not going to rape you. I’m no rapist.” He smiled. “I’m not even a man.”
Savana remembered Gomez’s live TV interview one week earlier. She hadn’t watched it—she didn’t bother with trash television—but she read about it the next day. Gomez believed he was a werewolf.
“I’m so much more than a man,” he said. “Now, you’re going to take me on a tour of this house, room by room, and you’re going to show me everything in it, drawer by drawer, so I can make myself comfortable. Understand? Nod if you get it.”
Savana nodded.
“Everything good?” Mace said into his cell phone while he skimmed new reports of Gomez’s escape and the murders of the O’Hearns on his computer.
“Affirmative,” Cheryl said. “But I can’t stop watching the news.”
“That will make you paranoid.”
“I can’t believe I was part of this machine.”
“I understand how you feel.”
“Any word?”
Jim and Hollander entered the squad room.
Mace straightened up. “No. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.” Standing, he pocketed his phone and went into the squad room.
“Get your task force into the conference room,” Jim said. “We need to brief everyone.”
Mace glanced at Norton, who registered his curiosity but avoided reacting.
“I need all detectives and special agents in the conference room,” Mace said in a raised voice.
Karol rose first, followed by the other detectives and the FBI agents. Inside the conference room, everyone sat around the table except for Hollander, who connected his laptop to the PowerPoint projector.
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