by James Tucker
He straightened, grabbed the metal escape with his right hand. Put most of his weight on that hand, in order to ease the weight on his left.
The escape shook with a footstep, with the weight of someone above him. Buddy couldn’t see the person and didn’t know if the Russian could see his fingers curled around the outer edge of the escape.
Now!
He bent his right knee, let go of the escape with his right hand, and reached for the Glock. Putting his hand around the gunstock, he pulled and raised the weapon.
His left hand held the railing firmly, for now.
Turning to his right, he could see a gun barrel extending into the hole where the stairs came down. He wasn’t going to shoot at something as small as a gun or at the fragment of the Russian’s arm. He had time for one shot, and he wanted center mass.
Yet he couldn’t lift himself up by one arm in order to take a shot. Impossible, he thought.
He began pushing off the brick wall with his feet, and swinging his legs outward, not too much, but enough to give himself momentum.
One.
Two.
Three.
He pushed hard off the wall and swung his body up so he had a line of sight above the escape. To his right, a large man dressed in black was leaning toward the opening created by the stairs.
Buddy fired two rounds at the man’s chest.
The man collapsed and fell headfirst down the stairs. His gun flew from his hands and he dropped like a stone.
Buddy watched as the man lay unmoving on the escape below. Then he shoved the Glock into the waistband at the small of his back, put his right hand on the escape, and moved sideways to the right, toward the stairway.
The second Russian won’t try the same move, he thought. He won’t be that stupid. Or that smart.
Buddy reached the stairs, relieved to be standing. After opening and closing his left hand in order to warm it, he pulled the Glock and held it with both hands.
His prey waited in the living room upstairs, undoubtedly with a gun or two. But standing on the fire escape without cover remained dangerous. He couldn’t climb up to the escape along the building’s third floor, but he had to do that very thing.
He thought quickly, pulled out the burner phone from his jacket pocket, and dialed Ward, hoping his brother was alive and could answer.
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Ward’s phone vibrated, audible in the silent room.
Buddy? he wondered, chest tightening.
He tried to think of how to answer it.
Set the Beretta on the floor?
No.
Yet he had just one functioning hand. He backed into the condo, around the corner of the living room, and along the short hallway to the single bedroom. He kept going until he reached the far wall. Then he set the Beretta on the windowsill and pulled out his phone.
“Buddy?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
Instead of answering, Buddy said, “I need a distraction for the Russian in this condo’s living room.”
Ward watched the hallway, waiting to react if he heard or saw evidence of the shadow’s entrance into this condo. He said, “What kind of distraction? And for how long?”
A pause. Ward heard . . . wind? Was Buddy outside?
Buddy said, “Five seconds.”
Ward thought about distractions. He said, “I can’t leave this condo. Someone’s in the corridor, someone who’s a fucking great shot.”
Buddy said, “Start now.”
“Start what?”
“Count to thirty. Starting now.”
“And then what, Buddy? What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t use all your ammo, but shoot the shit out of the corridor.”
Ward thought about this. Then he said, “I’ll start the count now. All right?”
Silence, because Buddy had ended the call.
Ward shoved the phone in his pocket and made his way out of the bedroom, through the hallway, and toward the small foyer and doorway. He counted to twenty, then began firing into the empty unit directly across the corridor.
Again and again, chewing through the rounds, more than one per second.
The M9’s blasts perforated the silence of the building, shaking it, making the air around him smell like a Roman candle.
129
Buddy heard Ward’s first shot. Moving rapidly, he climbed up the fire escape stairs, staying low but otherwise leaving cover. Two steps at a time, he reached the third-level platform, then kept going until he was near the living room windows. Through the right window, he saw nothing. He stepped to his left, to the window with the bullet hole. The lower portion of that window was open where the first Russian had climbed out onto the fire escape.
He saw the second Russian. It was Rat Eyes, and his body faced the window and the fire escape where Buddy stood. But Rat Eyes’s head was turned to the right, toward the building’s interior corridor and the volley of shots from Ward’s M9.
Once again Buddy saw the woman’s pale, elegant face. She pointed at him. She opened her mouth to speak.
Buddy ignored her and raised his gun to fire through the glass. He aimed not at Rat Eyes’s center mass but at the side of his head. Because it was personal. Because he wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
He fired.
Rat Eyes’s skull jerked sideways, at a weird angle and toward the corridor. Buddy saw an explosion of bone and blood, and the clump of the big man falling to the floor, already a corpse.
Then Buddy stepped through the lower part of the open window and entered the living room.
“Don’t fucking move,” he told the woman there, even as she shrank against the wall.
130
Hands gripping the Sig Sauer, the shadow in unit 302 didn’t move. Couldn’t move, or the man with sandy hair across the corridor would shoot. Had to wait, although waiting proved difficult and painful.
The shadow’s chest burned with worry for the woman in unit 305. If a bullet pierced that beautiful warm skin, the shadow would have no future.
“Clear!”
The shadow tensed at the sudden call of Detective Lock’s voice. Detective Lock, alive? the shadow thought. How is it possible? The Russians were dead, the shadow now understood. Just as Lock’s vulgar instruction had meant the woman was alive.
But the shadow understood this woman would be destroyed. Personally, financially. Her wealth and reputation, her power and dignity, gone, the remainder of her life spent in prison. Where she’d be murdered, probably.
Silently, the shadow cried out: No, it can’t be! I can’t let it happen. Not when we’ve come so far.
Frustration and anger charged through the shadow’s arteries. Fear, too, but more than fear, confidence. What had the woman told the shadow? History remembers those with power, not how they got their power, but how they took it like ripe fruit from a tree and wouldn’t let go. But the shadow’s tightening chest betrayed more than these emotions. There was passion, shared only in a large, ornate bedroom. That was the foundation underlying all the others, all the years of service, all the compromises made, and the crimes committed. It was this love that led the shadow to determine another way. Another path forward. A final risk to retain all they’d worked for and all the woman had become.
131
Buddy was staring at her. She was calm, holding up her hands.
Buddy knew that nobody would come into unit 305 via the corridor. Ward would shoot anyone who tried.
He got up and approached her. As he raised his left hand, she shied away to the side. He put his hand on her left shoulder, turned her around, and shoved her forward, so her face and chest were against the wall, though her hair remained straight and untangled. In three seconds he patted her down.
Ward called out: “Across the corridor from you. Ten o’clock.”
“10-4.”
Buddy walked over to the doorway to the corridor. But he didn’t bob his head into the space. He knew Ward was just ins
ide the doorway to his left. He knew that across the corridor and two doorways to the left, a third person waited. Once again, he realized, nobody could move without being shot and killed. Not unless they wanted to die. Unless . . .
He had an idea, but one that was illegal and so far outside his police training that he was ashamed to think of it. And yet it might work. He decided to find out.
He turned back and waved her toward him.
132
The shadow looked along the short gun barrel at the doorway to unit 303, where the man with the sandy hair was hiding. But there was new movement in the doorway to unit 305.
She was there: always elegant, even now self-possessed. The woman emerged from the doorway. Her hands were at her sides. Her brown eyes were narrowed with fear, yet she was steady on her feet.
One step, and another, along the corridor and toward the doorway where the shadow waited. Their eyes met, but the shadow broke that meaningful connection to look behind the woman.
133
Buddy waited until the woman was between him and the shadow in the doorway of unit 302. Then he launched himself across the corridor and through the open door of the condo there.
The shot seemed louder than a bomb in the empty building, but it went above his head and wide to the left.
He stood, reentered the corridor, and slid with his back against the wall. Without pause, he moved toward the door to unit 302. He’d seen her go into that condo. He sensed but didn’t look at Ward, standing in the doorway across the hall from him. He knew that if the shadow in the doorway to his right tried to shoot him, Ward would take it out.
Buddy stepped closer to the doorway, the Glock trained on the opening.
134
The shadow heard Buddy’s back skim along the corridor wall, the sound of clothing against plaster moving closer and closer. It was a brushing noise, and it grew louder.
Years of training, the shadow realized, and this was the final event. Or the beginning. One or the other.
The shadow thought briefly and decided the situation had changed. Before Detective Lock had crossed to this side of the corridor, waiting had been smart. Now it created more risk.
Go!
The shadow crouched into combat position, stepped into the hallway, and began to squeeze the trigger to fire at Lock.
135
Buddy saw the movement in the doorway to his right. He fired.
Once. Twice. And again.
He heard Ward firing from the doorway across the hall, the sound of both weapons explosive and shocking. He watched the figure in front of him fall and never get off a round.
136
Buddy hurried forward, kicked the Sig Sauer away from the smallish hands, and bobbed his head into unit 302. He saw nothing, yet in the dimness he couldn’t see well. Slowly, he stepped into the foyer and listened.
A keening noise, like a badly injured animal, came from the corner of the living room. He waited a moment to be sure no bullets would be fired at him. Then he moved forward.
She sat on the oak floor, her legs straight out, her back leaning against the wall. Through the window above her head, Buddy saw snowflakes resembling ashes.
As she looked up at him, he could see her tears.
She said, “Why?”
Buddy ignored her. He returned to the hallway.
Ward was pulling a black scarf and black knit hat off the figure on the floor. Ward said, “Who is it?”
Buddy stepped closer and leaned in. “I can’t see.”
Ward took out his iPhone and turned on the flashlight feature, shining the LED light at the body.
As Buddy recognized the face, he felt stunned. As if the earth had fallen away beneath him.
He’d been set up from the beginning, he knew now. As soon as he’d taken the call from Mack Berringer and lobbied Chief Malone to work the case, he’d been undermined at every turn. From that moment, he’d been in mortal danger.
Now he understood how his whereabouts—and those of Mei and Ben—had been discovered. How, as his investigation had brought him closer and closer to the truth, the menace had increased and ever more severe attempts were made on his life to silence him, to make him disappear. How Vance McInnis, the vice president of Cromwell Properties, had been so easily set up, with the crime scene laid out perfectly.
All of it managed by this person, who knew police procedure and everyone with power in the NYPD.
He felt anger and sadness at the depth of the betrayal—the betrayal of trust, of mission, of oath. Disgust in his voice, he said, “Turn off the light. I don’t need to see Rachel Grove anymore.”
Ward shut off the light, put away his phone, and asked, “Who is she?”
Buddy straightened and looked away. “Force Investigation Division, NYPD.”
“What?”
“Used to be called Internal Affairs.”
“The cops of the cops?”
Buddy said, “Supposed to be. But this one was a traitor.”
At the sound of the name, the elegant woman emerged from unit 302. Buddy raised his gun, but she held nothing in her open hands.
Seeing Rachel Grove’s body on the floor, she knelt down and embraced it, worked her hands under the shoulders, lifted it toward her in a pietà. Rachel’s head lolled heavily at the end of a neck rubbery in death, her curly brown hair spiraling into the air, her eyes half open.
In agony, the living woman cried without decorum. “My sweet darling. No, no, no. No, darling. Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back! Oh, no. No, my love. My love. My . . .”
Buddy watched. Through the snowstorm outside, he heard the distant peal of sirens.
Suddenly, she glared up at him. “You’ll pay for this, Detective.”
He made no expression, though very slowly, he shook his head. “I think you’ll be the one paying.”
“You killed her, Detective. She was a police detective, in FID! You’ll burn for this!”
Buddy ignored her and looked over at Ward, who was holding up his phone, recording audio and video of the entire scene.
“Do you have any idea who I am? Any idea of the sacrifices Rachel made?”
Buddy couldn’t help it. He felt a burning heat roll through his body. He knew his face was flushed and he was about to lose control of himself, but he also knew this was the moment to jab her. She remained confident, despite her precarious legal position. He said, “Yeah, I know the sacrifices Rachel made. But they were the sacrifices of other people, not herself. How many people? How many had to die for your shitty condo projects and your money and power?”
She gently set the body on the carpeted floor and stood. She assumed her imperious bearing—in heels she was about his height—raised her chin, and looked down her nose at him. “Nobody, Detective. Nobody had to die. Not if they didn’t choose it.”
Buddy stared at her. “Choose it?” he repeated. “Chen and Lily Sung, from across the hall. Did they choose to die?”
She didn’t respond. She noticed that Ward was holding up a phone and she was being filmed.
“And what about Sloan Richardson?” Buddy asked. “Wasn’t she a special case?”
The woman in front of him pulled up her left sleeve and checked her watch. “It’s time for me to leave.”
Buddy pressed, “Why did you order Sloan Richardson to be killed?”
The woman’s eyes flickered angrily. “I don’t know any Sloan Richardson.”
Buddy angled his head. “Sloan lived down the hall, in unit 309.”
She shrugged.
“She was raised in California but born here in New York.”
“Detective, many people are born in New York. They move to California because they want more space or more sunshine. Or for whatever reason. It’s a free country. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Buddy blocked her path. “No, I will not excuse you. Because I found out about Sloan Richardson. I couldn’t put it together until tonight. But yesterday, I found something under the radiator cover in her
bedroom. Do you know what it was?”
The woman gave no response.
Buddy said, “I found her birth certificate.”
Her porcelain complexion grew flushed, but she was silent.
137
“It was interesting,” Buddy continued. “It didn’t list her mother or father. Not her biological mother or father. Apparently she was a foundling, left at five months old on the sidewalk outside Mount Sinai Hospital in the early morning hours of August 3, 1992. But you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you, Mayor?”
Mayor Blenheim straightened. “Of course not,” she said, though her voice grew strained and hoarse.
Buddy said, “Sloan Richardson had tracked you down, hadn’t she?”
“Detective, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Chen and Lily Sung were just one problem you solved by murder, weren’t they? The Russian money laundering brought you some campaign dollars, but that wasn’t the main reason you needed to demolish the Nanjing building, was it?”
Mayor Blenheim’s face showed frustration and annoyance, perhaps feigned, but her face also showed something else—something Buddy recognized. He’d seen it before in the rich and powerful. It was the thing they hated more than anything else.
Fear.
Fear they’d been found out and would lose all they’d gained. That they’d lose everything.
Right now, he was the person threatening to take it away.
He said, “All of this—all the people killed, the pursuit of my fiancée and the boy we’re trying to adopt, the death of your own daughter, Sloan Richardson—you did for money. For help winning elections.”
Mayor Blenheim said, “Detective, I’ve supported your work, but I think you need professional help.”
Buddy heard the sirens outside. They were close. He had no more than a minute. He said, “The power of other people is based on their competence at their jobs, their connections, their money. But your power is based on voters’ support. That’s all you’ve got. So if the public learned you’d once had a five-month-old daughter that you abandoned outside a hospital . . . a daughter you’d ignored your entire life. A daughter you had not when you were sixteen but when you were in your midthirties and about to run for city council. That public knowledge would have destroyed your career. So when Sloan learned your identity, when she refused to vacate her apartment in the Nanjing building—because you wouldn’t recognize her or even meet with her—you made her disappear. Your discovery that she lived in the Nanjing building gave you the chance to kill two birds with one stone. She couldn’t hold over in the building, because she was dead. And because she was dead, she couldn’t end your career.” Buddy pointed at the mayor and said, “Do you have anything to say about your decisions?”
