Peering through the scope on his rifle, Rourke tightened his finger on the trigger.
“Hold your fire!” Langetti said. “That’s not our target. It’s just a homeless man.”
Rourke slid his finger behind the trigger, knowing that Sinclair had done the same.
Collins took the bird back up to fifty feet and rotated it.
“There!” Langetti said, pointing at the heat sensor screen. “Look at the size of it! That’s no wolf.”
“Look at the speed of it. It’s no man, either.” Collins stabilized the bird, then took after the moving target.
“Base, this is Flight 10,” Langetti said into his hand radio. “We’re in pursuit of possible target. Over.”
“Copy that. Over.”
With the bird’s nose tilted down, Collins pursued the shape.
“It should be just ahead,” Langetti said.
Collins slowed the craft, and Langetti hit the lawn ahead with the spotlight, turning the grass as white as the surface of the moon.
“There it is!” Collins said.
They saw a black shape moving across the lawn, and as they drew closer to it, it indeed resembled a giant black dog running at top speed.
“Get ready, back there!” Langetti said without looking over his shoulder.
Collins descended again, dropping to thirty feet, the equivalent height of a three-story building. He matched the beast’s pace.
Looking through his scope, Rourke noticed the creature lacked a tail. “Fire!”
Both snipers fired at the same time, kicking up puffs of dirt on each side of the beast, which started running in a zigzag pattern.
“Get ahead of it and turn sideways,” Rourke said to Collins.
The bird accelerated again, flying over the beast and ahead of it, then slowed down, rotated sideways so that Rourke faced the oncoming beast, and hovered in place. From this angle, Sinclair could not fire, so the pressure was on Rourke. Fortunately, he had a clear shot. Taking careful aim, he fired. But the beast turned left at the last possible second, and Rourke’s bullet struck the ground ahead of it. The beast raced away.
“After it!” Rourke shouted.
Collins had only to steer the bird forward, which he did. Langetti had trouble keeping the beast within the spotlight because of its erratic running pattern.
“Get ahead of it and pull over again,” Collins said.
As the Koala flew over the beast, it veered to the right. Sinclair fired his weapon but missed.
“Damn it!” Langetti said.
“It’s too fast,” Collins said, bringing the chopper to a stop and rotating it 90 degrees.
Rourke readied another shot as the beast came into view, but a sickening sound filled the aircraft, which gave a violent shudder.
“Tail blade!” Collins said as he tried to stabilize the craft.
Then the bird spun out of control, allowing them to glimpse the tree they had struck, and plummeted at a forty-five degree angle, the ground rushing up to meet them.
A news bulletin interrupted the inane reality TV show that Mace and Cheryl had sat down to watch. A newswoman stood outside Central Park with police officers swarming around her. “This is Sherry Regis with a Channel 7 News Bulletin. Seven people have been killed around the Central Park Zoo, including four policemen aboard an NYPD helicopter.”
Cheryl said, “Oh, my God.”
Seven? Mace sat up. That brought the total to fourteen …
“Police representatives aren’t saying much at this time,” Sherry said, “but police band chatter gives every indication that the other three fatalities were murders committed by the Manhattan Werewolf.”
With his heart pounding, Mace stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think? I don’t care what Dunegan and his sycophants say. This is still my case.”
With his parking permit on the dashboard, Mace parked the Impala on a cross street facing Fifth Avenue and got out. Approaching the wooden blockades on foot, he flashed his shield at one of the POs standing behind it. The man nodded and allowed him to pass.
Walking up Fifth Avenue, he saw dozens of police cars and scores of police personnel. Reporters jammed every side street entrance, andsilhouettes crowded the windows of buildings overlooking the park. He counted at least three ambulances, and as he neared the entrance to the zoo, a helicopter flew overhead. Showing his shield to a second PO, he said, “What happened in there?”
The PO said, “Three guys got killed outside the zoo, including one of ours. Then a chopper from the Aviation Unit crashed into some trees in there, toasting everybody on board. Four guys, I hear. That makes six cops total. When are we going to kill this thing, Captain?”
Mace didn’t answer the PO. He heard someone calling his name from the blockade behind him. Ignoring the journalist, he entered the park.
Two more ambulances, two squad cars, and the CSU van blocked his view of the crime scene. Passing between the EMS buses, he ducked beneath the yellow crime-scene tape. Off to one side, he heard a male police officer say, “But, Inspector, I’m telling you that’s what we saw …”
Hector Rodriguez crouched beside the bloody corpse of a police officer next to an overturned three-wheeled NYPD vehicle. One of the doors had been ripped off, and Mace presumed the driver had been jerked through it. Deeper inside the park, additional strobes outlined trees and dense smoke rising beyond them in a pulsing rhythm. Mace finally had some idea of what it was like to stand in a war zone.
Glancing up, Hector said, “Yo, Mace. At least this one’s still got his head.”
Staring at the ghastly wound in the dead PO’s neck, Mace said, “What the hell happened?”
Hector rose. “Judging by this neck wound, I’d say Officer Perez here ran into your werewolf.”
They walked toward a second male corpse, which lay facedown in the grass. Its jacket and back had been torn to shreds, revealing glistening muscle and shattered ribs. Crouching low, Mace peered at the dead man’s open eyes and recognized Father Hagen’s frozen features.
He knew a lot more than he told me.
“Either he wasn’t carrying a wallet or your werewolf stole it,” Hector said.
Without saying a word, Mace walked to the third corpse, which Suzie Quarrel photographed from multiple angles. This corpse also lay facedown, except that it had no head and therefore no face.
“His head was chopped off,” Mace said, examining the clean decapitation. “Not chewed.”
“Go to the head of the class. You want to guess what the deed was done with?”
“A sword?”
“You are smart. No wonder you get the big bucks. And there it is.” He pointed at a wide blade sticking out of the ground.
Mace pulled on latex gloves. “That look like silver to you?”
“Silver as a bullet.”
Mace carefully unwrapped the canvas tied around the blade’s end, revealing a jagged break. “A perfect fit for our hilt. But who’s the vic?”
Hector nodded past Mace to where the victim’s head lay.
Approaching the head from behind, Mace removed a Maglite from his coat pocket. Stepping around the head, he aimed the light at the dead features of a man with a pencil-thin mustache. Features he had seen earlier today at Father Hagen’s parish. “Any ID on this one?”
Hector shook his head. “Nope. And here’s a new wrinkle, though: we got an extra head.”
Hector led Mace over to a shoulder bag, which Mace stood upright and opened. Shining the light inside the bag, he saw the rotting face of a man who had been dead a week.
“I’ll lay odds this is Glenzer,” Mace said.
“The first vic? Everything seems to be coming full circle. Nice job. Oh … hi, Inspector.”
Turning, Mace saw Chu approaching them, his features an uneasy mixture of shock and anger. “Tony, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Let me get back to work,” Hector said, returning to the PO’s corpse.
“I thought I
could help,” Mace said.
“We’ve got this situation under control without any help from you.”
“You could have fooled me. You the primary on this too? Better watch your back, Lou. This case is hell on careers.”
“You’re suspended. I don’t want you anywhere near this crime scene, and I don’t want you talking to any reporters out there.”
“If you change your mind you know how to reach me.” As Mace departed the crime scene, the helicopter flew overhead again. Christ, what a mess.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“I’ve ordered the National Guard into New York City. Help is on the way …”
—New York State Governor Lloyd Simon
Running along the walkway between Carl Schurz Park and the East River, Mace headed downtown beneath the smoky dark sky. It was the first morning he had followed his regular routine since the Manhattan Werewolf murders had begun, and he wanted to push his body to its limit, blocking events from his mind. Pumping his legs, he saw a police chopper flying farther downtown, around Fifty-ninth Street, and he knew that if a bird was flying over the Upper East Side, more patrolled the sky over Lower Manhattan.
At Seventy-eighth Street, he descended a steep flight of concrete steps that led to the bike path along the FDR Drive. With heavy rain imminent, few people were out today. He used the relatively free space to widen his stride, the river to his left and the busy drive on his right.
Then a mechanical roar rose above the traffic sounds, and a huge shape passed him on the far side of the road. He did a double take as the caravan of armored vehicles drove downtown. Jeeps. Troop transports. Hummers. Everything but tanks. They were all emblazoned with the U.S. National Guard logo.
Jesus, Mace thought as the dozen vehicles proceeded to their destination. He wondered if the Village residents would feel safer or worry that Godzilla had attacked Manhattan. Within the troop transports he saw dozens of helmeted guardsmen ready for action. As he watched the vehicles recede from his field of vision, he ran to the bike path’s end at Sixty-first Street and turned around and ran back the way he had come, his sweatshirt soaking with sweat. He was so distracted thinking about the caravan that he failed to pay attention to the man standing on the overpass walkway ahead. Only as he passed beneath the overpass did he sense that the man had been staring at him. His mind sketched a quick profile: six feet tall, Caucasian, thirty years old, dressed in blue jeans and a button-down shirt open at the neck, almost preppy in appearance—a typical Upper East Side resident.
Then why is the hair on the back of my neck standing on end? With his footsteps echoing, he enhanced the mental profile. Short, wavy dark hair and a hard mouth—smiling? He recalled the face he had seen in the surveillance footage of Patty’s murder, and he compared that to the man he had just glimpsed, his heart pounding faster. Emerging from beneath the overpass, he looked up at the concrete retaining wall but saw nothing. He continued to run until he had gone far enough to get a good view of the overpass. Slowing to a fast walk so as not to trip, he turned around again.
No one stood on the overpass.
What the hell? Had the man been a figment of his imagination?
No. His mind didn’t play tricks. Then where is he?
The man could have been crawling behind the concrete barrier leading to Seventy-eighth Street …
Or running there on all fours.
An uneasy feeling gripped his stomach, and he glanced around in all directions. The only way to reach the overpass was to run to the steps a quarter of a mile away, then run down East End Avenue to Seventy-eighth Street. Instead he ran home, showered, and looked up flights online. After finding the flight he wanted, he emptied his wallet and searched through the business cards he had collected.
“This is crazy,” Cheryl said on the drive to JFK.
“I don’t blame you for thinking so,” Mace said as he raced the Impala along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. “But I’m sure I saw him. More to the point, I’m sure he saw me.” He had booked her a flight to Albany, where her parents lived.
“How could he have known that was you?”
“I’ve been on TV plenty, even though I haven’t given any interviews, and the papers sure included me in their coverage.”
“Okay, let’s say he knows who you are. How could he also have known where you’d be this morning?”
“Maybe he followed me from our place. He’s playing games. He wanted me to see him, to know that he knows where we live.”
“And you believe this man turned into the wolf that killed that Indian?”
He knew how crazy he sounded. “I don’t know what I believe, except that you and the baby could be in danger.”
“I’ve never seen you paranoid like this before.”
“Chalk it up to impending fatherhood.”
“Can’t you just order someone to keep an eye on us?”
“Our unknown subject has killed six cops so far, and no one in the department seems willing to believe what I witnessed, so they’re not likely to take me seriously on this, either.”
“Then why aren’t you coming with me?”
“Because I need to keep working this.”
Her voice rose. “Why, when you’re off the case?”
“Because I am the only one who believes what this thing is.”
“If there’s danger I don’t want you involved. Don’t you understand that? You can’t run around like some rogue cop.”
“I’ll join you in a few days.”
Raindrops spattered the windshield, and he switched on the wipers.
As the 1:00 PM tour boat departed from Pier 83 on West Forty-second Street, Mace gazed at the churning wake from its aft. A strong wind blasted the Hudson River, and he shivered. The rain that had fallen in Queens had not yet reached Manhattan but threatened a deluge at any moment. The two-hour semicircle cruise would take him downriver, around the Battery, up the East River, underneath the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges, and to the United Nations building and back. Seagulls slashed the sky before him, and helicopters flew overhead. He pitied the tourists.
Making his way to the second level, he saw a woman standing at the railing with her back to him. Just over five feet tall, medium-length dark hair wrapped in a scarf, her long dark coat obscuring her figure. A family of Asians stood at the forward end. Otherwise, all the passengers occupied the boat’s interior. Joining the woman, he grasped the cold metal railing with his left hand.
Facing him, Angela Domini removed her sunglasses. Her eyes exhibited an age and weariness they had lacked before. She had cut her hair shorter, giving it a more conservative appearance.
“Disguise?”
Angela nodded. “I’m a wanted woman. Other than your killer and you, I have the most famous face in the city right now.”
“I’m sorry about that. We needed to find you.”
“I have to disappear now for my own safety and my family’s.”
“You think the werewolf’s after you?”
“I know he is. That’s how John was able to set that trap for him. But the police pose just as big a threat to me now.”
“Why? You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re just a person of interest.”
“I’m a witness, but I can’t say what I saw.”
“Why not? I did.”
“My people won’t allow it. They can’t. Proof of our existence would mean our extinction.”
An icy chill inched down Mace’s spine. “Your ‘people-’?”
“The Greater Pack of New York City.”
Mace narrowed his eyes at her.
“What you call werewolves.”
He blinked. “You don’t look like a werewolf to me.”
“What makes you think you know what a werewolf looks like? This is my human form, the body I was born into. But I have two other forms: that of a wolf and that of a hybrid. My people are shape-shifters. We’ve walked this land”—she nodded at Manhattan—“longer than yours have.”
“
A secret society?”
“A secret species. Living in the shadows. The Indians worshipped us as gods, and we cohabitated this land, if not in harmony, then at least with balance. The White Invasion changed everything. Your kind practiced genocide on mine, and we were forced to take on human forms and hide our true selves. Over time, we lost the ability to adopt other shapes.”
Mace looked her up and down and shook his head. “I find this hard to believe.”
“Even after seeing what happened to John?”
“Especially after that. You can’t be like that creature.”
“Like I said, I was born in this body. But my parents taught mybrothers and me to Change shape, as their parents taught them. Our pack is cosmopolitan, but we’ve tried to preserve aspects of our heritage without exposing ourselves. We own a retreat where we’re encouraged to get in touch with our true selves. Other packs have differing philosophies. Some forbid Transformation; others embrace it even more than we do. And then there are those who have lost their identity and who don’t even realize what they are.”
Like Gomez, Mace thought. “How many packs are there?”
Angela forced a smile. “I won’t tell you that, and I won’t tell you how many members belong to mine. But I will say that we’re an endangered species, which is why it’s essential that we don’t take any unnecessary risks regarding this Berserker.”
“Is that what you call him?”
“It’s what we call any Wolf who turns rogue.”
“Who is he?”
“Before I tell you, let me tell you who he isn’t. He isn’t a member of my pack—or hasn’t been for some time. In fact, he isn’t a member of any pack. A rogue operates on his own, without any regard for the laws of our society.”
“A lone wolf …”
“Yes.”
“What rules?”
“We have many, but the most critical are these. ‘Do not kill man.’ ‘Do not reveal your true self to man.’ ‘Do not endanger yourself or your pack.’ This Berserker is deliberately breaking our laws and throwing his actions in our faces.”
The Frenzy Way Page 27
