The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  He tossed a key at Dubs who caught it reflexively.

  Dubs reluctantly pushed the money back at the man. ‘I ain’t doing anything illegal, dude. Dubs is on the straight and narrow these days.’

  The man took the money back and shrugged indifferently. ‘Your loss. Collecting my mail isn’t illegal. I woulda done it myself, but my bitch of an ex is having that place watched. She wants to serve some court papers on me. You know how women are.’

  ‘Tell me again,’ Dubs said feelingly.

  He eyed the wad again, puffed himself up and said confidently.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  Half an hour later he found himself prone on the sidewalk, guns pointed at him, cops screaming in his face.

  Zeb hung back from the bunch of cops, eyed the dumpster Dubs was to have dropped the mail in.

  The Flayer will be in a position where he can watch it. He will wait till Dubs walks away, scan for any danger and then pick his stuff.

  Zeb’s eyes went over pedestrians, office goers, couples, women with babies. Practiced eyes swept, looking for anything that didn’t belong, for people who didn’t fit. It was nearing office closing hours and there were already a good number of people on the avenue.

  None stood out.

  Three vantage points gave an unrestricted view of the dumpster.

  The awning of a café, a food truck’s serving counter, and an office entrance.

  Zeb rejected the office entrance. The Flayer would stand out.

  The food truck.

  Nope, the line moved too fast.

  The café.

  He scanned the seated people, those standing, found none that hooked his interest and turned to watch behind him.

  Something.

  He willed his body to be normal, thought back to what he had seen.

  Glasses. No, shades. Tall man. Standing way behind the café.

  Zeb completed his turn, a hundred and eighty degrees and his eyes flicked casually to where he’d seen the glasses.

  Shades. Scarf. Looking directly back at him.

  Zeb didn’t know when he started moving; he moved like water through the crowd. The dark shades looked a second longer his way and then the man bolted.

  A hundred meters separating them.

  Behind him, Zeb heard yells from Chang, the Petersens. He ignored them.

  Leapt over a baby carriage, ignored the woman’s curse, ducked around a couple, and shoved away a man on his phone.

  The Flayer, if it was him, was ducking and weaving himself, hampered by the long coat he wore.

  Ninety meters now, gaining.

  The avenue ran through Woodlawn, connecting East Twenty Third Street at its southern end and Van Cortland Park East at the northern end. Both ends led to parks and oases of calm.

  Zeb chased the man, as he headed south, past an Irish pub through which people burst out.

  One went down, a scream cut through the air. People rushed to his aid, blocked Zeb’s run.

  That’s pain. Not anger.

  It came to him and a burst of anger surged through him.

  He’s knifed someone.

  In the crowd, at the speed he’s going, a sharp knife can go in and out in a second. The victim won’t even know he has been attacked. The perp will have long gone.

  Zeb dodged the bunched up people.

  Lost vital seconds, put on more speed, but slowed down again as more shouts of agony ripped the air ahead. Pockets formed, joined, and became a continuous crowd.

  The bobbing head of the Flayer separated itself from the mass of people.

  Sixty meters separated Zeb and him, but it could be an ocean. Zeb shouted aloud, called for the Flayer to be chased down.

  His voice went unheard as ambulances rushed to the scene their sirens drowning out all human voice. Zeb kept his eyes on the assailant, he saw him slow down and turn around, the shades focused on him.

  The man walked backward, all the while keeping his gaze on his pursuer, and when he passed a couple, his left hand moved swiftly.

  Seconds later the woman clutched her side, screamed and fell and at the sound the Flayer fled into anonymity.

  Zeb watched his departing back in bitterness and when the sisters huffed next to him, he told them what had gone down.

  ‘He knifed five or six randomly, used the panic and chaos to escape. I tried to go around people but there were too many. All the patrol cars here, all these cops, not one had a clue what was going down.’

  He took a deep breath and calmed himself. ‘The last one - he deliberately knifed her while he watched me. He knew I couldn’t get through all those people. There was no need for him to hurt her.’

  ‘Six people,’ Pizaka confirmed when he broke away from the bunch of people and reached them. ‘None of them seem to be seriously injured; none of them even knew they were attacked till they felt blood.’

  Practice, skill and a very sharp blade will do that.

  They were still there ninety minutes later as the injured were ambulanced away and witness statements were taken. The media vans lighted the evening with their camera flashes and turned the scene into a –

  ‘Circus.’

  Pizaka read Zeb’s thoughts. He pocketed his sunglasses and growled. ‘Would you believe that not one person got a good look at the man? Those that did said he wore shades and his face was covered. Hell, we know that!’

  ‘What about that guy we apprehended?’

  ‘That dipshit’s got frigging nothing. He confirmed the disguise but has nothing more for us. All sense must have left him once he saw the money.’

  Despite the weight of failure, Zeb couldn’t contain a grin. Pizaka swore rarely, but when he did, his lack of practice told.

  ‘He said the assailant was wearing gloves. Black leather gloves.’

  They’ve probably gone into his pocket, along with the sunglasses and the scarf. Just another commuter in a coat in the winter evening.

  The Flayer did just as Zeb thought he would.

  He ducked inside an empty phone booth, removed his coat and turned it inside out.

  He crushed his gloves, glasses and scarf deep inside an inner pocket. He donned the coat, a different outer color now, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, walked briskly through alleys and streets.

  He reached the Woodlawn subway station ten minutes later, saw the patrol cars parked outside and kept on walking. A good half hour walk brought him to a bus stop and when one came, he climbed aboard and sat in the rear.

  He switched buses for the next hour, random changes, and an hour later found himself near Columbia University. He stopped at a bar that had a TV running with live coverage of the incident. He joined the silent crowd in front of the screen and read the streaming caption.

  Flayer strikes in broad daylight. Under NYPD’s nose.

  It wasn’t daylight, but I’ll take that headline.

  A burly man at the front swore. ‘We need the death penalty for scum like him.’ He got a chorus of approvals, one man high-fived him.

  Your cops have got to find me first.

  He stifled a snort and when the coverage became repetitive, broke away and headed to the nearest subway.

  He grinned.

  Carter’s expression when I knifed that woman.

  He started shivering when all the adrenaline and cockiness had drained away.

  That was close. I expected them to watch that mailbox center, but the way that Carter guy spotted me... like he smelled me.

  He thought about calling Korulev but dropped the idea.

  He doesn’t like to be chased.

  Let me focus on Stark.

  It’s time for her.

  Zeb and the twins waited till the crowds dissipated, patrol cars peeled away and that section of the Bronx reached a semblance of normalcy.

  He accompanied the two cops to their cars, patted Pizaka on the shoulder encouragingly and headed to his ride.

  A second later he sprinted back to Pizaka who rolled down his window.

/>   ‘What was in the mailbox?’

  ‘A new set of instruments.’

  Chapter 17

  December 10th – 16th

  Two more days of chasing down addresses, IP addresses, credit card receipts and witness statements didn’t turn up anything. Werner spat out fifty males who bought the bracelet all of whom, after another day of calls, were crossed out.

  Zeb took the sisters out of the office for a change of scene, to a mid-town bar.

  It was an intimate one that did not play loud music and encouraged you to have a conversation. People were talking, not texting.

  ‘You are sure only five hundred pieces were sold?’ He cocked his head at Meghan who was swirling a goblet of wine while Beth sent messages on her phone. Picture of the girlfriend deeply, madly in love.

  ‘You can bank on it.’ Meghan answered Zeb. She took a delicate sip, made a face, and placed the goblet down. ‘Where are you going with this?’

  ‘We are assuming he went to one of those stores and bought that bracelet. What if it was given to him, as a gift?’

  The short silence was followed by a smacking sound, Meghan slapping herself on the forehead.

  ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’

  ‘Cause you aren’t the Wise One.’ Beth put away her phone, dug out her laptop, and hooked it to the local WIFI connection. She accessed Werner over their secure network and reprogrammed the search parameters.

  ‘Any one in their early twenties onwards. If it was a gift, it was most likely from a girlfriend, but let’s not rule out anyone,’ she mumbled to herself as she typed.

  WIFI!

  Zeb pulled out his phone and emailed a photograph to Beth.

  ‘Run that through Werner and see if any matches come up.’

  Werner had facial recognition capabilities and had a vast database of criminals, terrorists, mobsters; a database that was regularly updated by feeds from the FBI, NSA, CIA, Interpol, and various other agencies.

  Broker grimaced whenever the term facial recognition was used because in reality Werner did much more than that. Werner analyzed gestures, walking patterns, stride lengths, postures, and put everything together along with facial recognition to identify a person.

  ‘Human recognition,’ he would bellow. ‘Facial recognition is just one part.’ But the latter term stuck.

  Meghan peered over Beth’s shoulder and turned her mouth down. ‘That’s a very bad picture. Just a side shot. Who is it?’

  Zeb moved his shoulders. ‘No idea. It was taken in a coffee store a couple of weeks back. The guy who took it noticed another man looking at a gruesome video. He was too far to get the details, but he thought it looked like a person was being killed.’

  Beth enlarged the photograph and stared at it. ‘The Flayer?’

  ‘Can’t be. This guy looks Middle Eastern or Mediterranean. The Flayer is white.’ Meghan objected.

  The edge of a laptop could be seen in the frame on which an indistinct image played.

  ‘Why did the Good Samaritan take this picture?’

  Zeb sighed. ‘The city is on tenterhooks; everyone is looking over their shoulders. This dude felt there was something off in the video this dude was watching. The cops went to the café and questioned everyone. As you can imagine, there were many males with laptops, no one noticed anything. They checked the internet traffic, but other than email applications, and search tools, they found nothing.’

  ‘Search terms?’

  ‘Nothing there. Searches related to work, some dating stuff.’

  Beth shut her laptop and put it away. ‘Werner’s on it. Let’s see what comes out. Werner came back with more than a thousand combinations of age 945. None of them were particularly useful.’

  A look crossed her face, frustration that for all the datasets they had, they were still chasing shadows.

  ‘Bracelet sales remain our best bet for now.’

  The Flayer was a shadow in Central Park, just another blob amidst the silence of the foliage.

  It wasn’t wholly silent; the Park had a life of its own, sounds of its own, night-time animals, distant traffic, boughs of trees swaying in the light wind. The Flayer’s video call with the HOF had gone spectacularly well.

  He had taken them on a tour of his basement, his operating theatre, and had shown them his exhibits. He had established an internet connection through a throwaway mobile, had used proxies to mask his IP address, and had bounced the connection to servers all across the globe.

  He was masked - no way was he revealing himself - and so was the man on the other end of the video call. The HOF man’s English was flawless and the Flayer thought he detected a British accent.

  It didn’t matter.

  British, American, Middle Eastern, who cares?

  The Flayer didn’t.

  All he wanted was to kill. Kill spectacularly and that now seemed to be a genuine opportunity with the HOF. The HOF man had wanted an in-person meeting, a one-to-one as he called it, to verify the Flayer was who he was.

  The Flayer had given it thought and then had accepted on one condition. He wanted proof that the HOF man was genuine.

  The HOF man disappeared from the video for a moment and then came back with a laptop. He turned it on and showed the clock to the Flayer who snorted.

  Anyone could change the clock settings.

  The masked man read the Flayer’s disbelief and took him to various websites, the New York Times, the Washington Post and showed him the dates on the newspapers.

  ‘Okay, we have established that we both are conversing in real time. But are you the HOF?’

  The masked man’s brown eyes flashed for a moment, but he bent silently and when he turned the screen to the Flayer, a video was playing on it.

  It was of an internet video of The Ghul beheading a captive in the desert.

  He typed some more and another video came up, the same man being killed.

  But not the same video.

  The Flayer leaned forward in excitement when it sank into him.

  The second video was an uncut, unedited version of the killing. The videos that the HOF posted were edited and polished professionally before the world got to see them. The masked man showed him more videos, and with each showing, the Flayer’s excitement grew.

  He couldn’t contain himself

  ‘You’re in New York?’

  The brown eyes stared back expressionlessly at him.

  A sound brought the Flayer back to the present, to Central Park.

  He looked around but didn’t see anything. The dim glow on his watch told him it was nearing closing time, twenty minutes more.

  The Ghul was cutting it fine.

  The Ghul was deliberately taking his time.

  He and his cell were observing the Flayer. They had been at their positions the whole day and when night had fallen, had donned masks. Masood and his men didn’t know who they were meeting and why. The Ghul had confiscated their throwaways for the meeting.

  No point giving them the means to take the Flayer’s photograph.

  As far as he could see, the Flayer was alone.

  No cops, no cars, no companions. But The Ghul hadn’t got to his position by taking risks and hence they had waited.

  He gave the signal when it was twenty to one and Masood approached the Flayer from the rear.

  He circled the Flayer, stood in front of him and the two regarded each other in silence. Masood brandished a gun which caught the dim light of the night and gleamed wickedly.

  ‘You’re not him,’ the Flayer said flatly. ‘Dude, don’t waste my time. We have done the dance, shown each other our cards. If your boss doesn’t show himself in the next five minutes, I’m outta here.’

  The Ghul left his hiding place and approached the Flayer.

  He made a gesture at Masood and the man disappeared into the shadows leaving the two men alone as they tried to stare each other down. They didn’t bother patting each other down for wires. They had already revealed too much to the other
person, listening devices didn’t matter.

  ‘You talk big for someone who I could kill right now,’ The Ghul said finally.

  The Flayer laughed in genuine amusement.

  ‘Is that what you came to this country for? To kill a killer? The NYPD might give you a medal for that. I thought you guys did bigger things.’

  The Ghul’s lips tightened beneath the mask. The killer was right. There was no point finishing a meaningless insect whose presence on the earth would not be missed.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘You are planning something. I am planning something. Let’s do it on the same day.’

  ‘How would that help me?’

  ‘It should be obvious. You guys like to stage events. I do the same. Together we can stage a day of bloodletting the city will never forget.’

  ‘Too risky. The NYPD will hunt us, not just them, but all the other agencies too.’

  The Flayer’s voice dripped scorn. ‘They aren’t, now? If you were risk averse, why are you in this country?’

  ‘Escape will be difficult if we do things together.’

  ‘On the other hand, their resources will be divided in hunting for us.’ He added slyly, ‘I don’t get what you are scared of. I thought you guys embraced death.’

  He felt the rage flare in the other man though not a muscle of his twitched.

  The Ghul controlled himself while a remote part of his brain acknowledged the killer’s reasoning. ‘You don’t fear being caught?’

  ‘Nope. Because I won’t be. I have been killing for years and they still don’t know who I am. They don’t even know how many I have killed, where all the bodies are.’

  The Ghul’s eyes bored into him. ‘Where do you kill?’

  ‘None of your business –’ The Flayer stopped mid-sentence. ‘Are you thinking what I am thinking?’

  The flat eyes didn’t blink. ‘I don’t know what you are thinking.’

  ‘You could do your beheading thing in my place. That’s what crossed your mind didn’t it?’

  He chuckled, liking the idea the more he thought about it.

  ‘I can see it working. You were planning to rent some place, right?’