by Blake Banner
He shook his head.
“Who was parked next to you?”
“I don’t know, Detective. They were cars, just normal cars. There was nothing out of the ordinary.” He hesitated. “About…” He closed his eyes, counting in his mind, his right hand held out, positioning to the vehicle in his mind. “Four cars down, opposite, an old, beat-up Cherokee Jeep. Dark green. It stood out because it was old. Maybe early ’90s. But that is all.”
My cell rang. It was the captain.
I said to the guy, “Listen. I’m sorry. Give your details to the sergeant. We may need to talk to you again.” I walked back to my car, answering the phone. “He is playing us like a fucking violin. He had Dehan’s phone taped to the underside of this guy’s chassis…”
“Stone, listen to me.”
“What?”
“It’s Zak.”
“What about him?” Before he could answer, I went on, “Captain, when I recovered the phone, it was set on a timer. It’s set for three hours. We all know what that means. He is going to kill her in three hours, at six p.m. Zak is the bureau’s headache. I haven’t got time for…”
“Shut up, Stone.”
He said it quietly, so I did.
“What?”
“Couple of days ago, a neighbor reported to the Cumberland County sheriff that there seemed to be people at the Hellfire Club again. They sent over a deputy. Zak was there and the deputy tried to arrest him. He shot the deputy and fled. The deputy managed to radio for help, but by the time they got there, Zak was long gone.”
“Why are you telling me this, Captain?”
“Because you need to know. Now just shut up, John, and listen to me.”
“Okay.”
“The deputy said he was not driving a bike. He drove away in an old model Cherokee. Looked like a ’95 model. Green.” He paused. My head was spinning. I had a flash in my mind of arriving at the club. Bikes. A Land Rover. A green Cherokee. The captain was saying, “Now, I am half-inclined to hand this over to somebody else, John…”
“Don’t do that, Captain.”
“Can you hold it together?”
“Yes.”
“One of your neighbors called in earlier today. The message did not get to you because it was left on your desk, and you have barely been at the station house.”
“What did the message say?”
“There had been a suspicious-looking man, looked like a Hell’s Angel, banging on your door. He left driving a green, early-model Cherokee.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“We put out an APB. The car has been spotted.”
“He was parked behind the precinct. In the Rite Aid parking lot.”
“Today?”
“When Dehan was abducted. Near the car where her phone was taped. Where is the Jeep now?”
He heaved a huge sigh. “At an old, abandoned church, at Jones Point, on the river. It’s opposite Peekskill…”
“I know where it is. I’m on my way there.”
“John, do not go. The bureau has this.”
“Fuck the bureau!”
“What?”
“I said I trust the bureau. You’re breaking up, Captain. Gotta go.”
I hung up and switched off my phone.
Nineteen
I took East 222nd across to the River Bronx Expressway. Then I broke the speed limit all the way to Elmsford. There I took I-287 across the Tappan Zee Bridge and scorched through Nyack onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway. I came off at Stony Point. After that I had to slow down, because the road wound and twisted, meandering among secluded clapboard houses and woodlands.
The light was beginning to fade, and the roads were wet and shiny with drizzle, but I couldn’t afford to drop below fifty. The Jag gripped the road like it was nailed to it, and I prayed to whatever gods look after reckless cops that I wouldn’t encounter anyone on the road around the next bend. Because I would not be able to stop.
Then, at Tomkin Cove, I was suddenly out in open countryside. I floored the pedal and did a hundred and twenty along the riverbank. I came to a fork in the road and slammed on the brakes. I knew where I was. There was a parking lot on the left, and I pulled in and stopped. I climbed out of the car and cocked my automatic. The way I was feeling right then, Zak would be a very lucky man indeed if he went away for life.
He’d be a lucky man to make it to the trial.
I moved down the road at a steady run. There were dense areas of trees and bushes on either side, and though they were bare of leaves, they were thick enough to provide cover in the failing light. I came in sight of the church and hunkered down behind a tree. The road forked again just ahead, and the left branch curved in a crescent through an open esplanade of grass, where the old church stood with gabled roof and spire. Parked out front, on a patch of muddy lawn across the road, were a green Cherokee and a Ford pickup. That meant I was dealing with six of them, tops.
Even if the main entrance to the church was open, which I doubted, going in that way was not an option. I began to circle back, through the trees, to see if there was a rear entrance to the vestry. I covered about a hundred and twenty yards at a ducking run, to what looked like a toolshed set about thirty yards back from the front of the church. It was dusk turning to dark, but I could see a red door. There were no windows.
I paused to think. I needed some kind of plan. The Feds would arrive at some point, and when they did, I knew exactly what was going to happen. Storming a stone church with no windows and only two doors was not easy, and the whole damn situation would degenerate into some kind of Waco-style standoff. I could not afford to do that.
I checked Dehan’s phone. I had less than two and a half hours. That meant one thing: my plan was to go in and get her. There was no time for anything else.
I readied myself for the sprint to the door and heard a soft click in my ear.
“Freeze. Put down the gun and tell me who you are.”
My mind flashed through the options. If he was one of Zak’s Angels, he wouldn’t be asking me who I was. He’d just blow me away. That meant this was a Fed. I said, “I’m Detective John Stone. I’m here to get my partner out of that church alive before you Feds set up a Waco circus here, and I am not going to put down my gun. Are we clear?”
The guy sighed. “At least show me your badge.”
I showed him.
“I can’t let you go in there, pal. They’re on their way. Your captain is with them, and the instructions were very clear. ‘When Stone arrives, clap him in irons if you need to, do not let him go in.’”
I turned and looked at him. If he was standing up, he would be six six at least. He’d probably been a quarterback at college and looked as tough as concrete. He smiled and held out his hand. “Agent King.”
I gave him my best rueful smile and shifted my automatic to my left hand. He thought I did it so we could shake. He was wrong. I did it so I could land a right cross on his jaw that would have put an elephant to sleep. He fell back with a soft splat in the wet grass, and I sprinted to the door. I had about five minutes, if that, before the circus arrived. I tried the handle and was not surprised to find it was locked. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around the barrel of my gun. It muffled some of the sound when I blew out the lock. I waited. Nobody came storming out, so I inched open the door and edged in.
I was in a short corridor. There were a couple of doors that looked like storerooms. At the end, the passage opened out into the nave of the church, and I could see a few rows of pews. From the left, there was a soft glow of light. I moved forward a couple of feet and peered around. There was the altar, and beyond it, in the transept, somebody had some candles burning, and I could hear the murmur of voices. I waited, hoping to hear a female voice. I didn’t.
What I did hear was the thud of a chopper and the wail of sirens. Then I heard cussing and swearing, and I saw six Angels, all armed, run toward the main door at the far end of the church. There was a gallery above the door that I figu
red had room for about eight pews. At the back there was a window. The access to the gallery was via a short wooden staircase. Four of them took positions covering the door, and Zak and another scrambled up the stairs to look out of the window.
Even these guys were not stupid enough to forget they had a back door. I had a matter of a few seconds in which to decide what I was going to do.
Zak made a noise like a wounded pterodactyl that turned out to be a laugh. “We got a whole fuckin’ army out here, boys! We are gonna have a bloodbath!” He leaned over the gallery and said, “Hey! Gas, Lenny. Take the back door.” He turned back to the window as Gas and Lenny started moving down the center aisle toward me.
It was now. It had to be now. And as I thought that, the bullhorn started bellowing outside and Zak started shouting abuse back at it. I didn’t aim for the approaching Angels. I aimed for the two at the front door. I figured the shot at twenty yards and aimed for the middle of the body. They were big bodies; it was hard to miss. I squeezed off four rounds—two double taps. With all the noise of the chopper and the bullhorn, they went down in silence.
Gas and Lenny saw the flames spit from the muzzle of my gun in the shadows, and for a moment they stood staring. They were only about ten yards away. I’m a good shot and I was real mad, so they got it between the eyes.
Then I ran. I sprinted along the side aisle and took the stairs two at a time. Zak had smashed the window and was leaning out, screaming abuse at the Feds outside. His pal looked at me in astonishment as I came up the stairs. Instead of shooting me, he stared down into the nave, looking for his pals, trying to understand. Maybe Mephistopheles could explain it to him when he got to Hell. I shot him through his right eye, and he sank to his knees. Zak turned. He brought his shotgun around, but it was too late. I drove my fist into his belly, and we both went crashing to the floor.
I don’t know if he was tough, or if he just enjoyed the pain. A normal guy would have been curled up in the fetal position vomiting. He just grinned, grabbed me by the throat, and started strangling me. It’s surprisingly difficult to punch somebody when you are lying down, especially if they have their hands around your throat. So I didn’t even try. Instead I forced my elbow between his arms, placed it on his eye, and leaned on him, hard. He screamed and thrashed his legs like a speared fish, then let go of my throat and started tearing at my hair.
Somehow, he scrambled out from underneath me and connected two powerful blows that sent me reeling against the wall. Outside, the bullhorn was still going. Zak came at me. I drove my fist in his belly again, but he didn’t seem to feel it. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hurled me toward the edge of the gallery. I staggered and stumbled, and he rushed at me, screaming. We collided and fell against the rail. For a moment I was going over. I clawed at his beard with my left hand. He backed away and pulled me back with him. I came forward, and as I did so, I smashed my right fist into his head.
However high you are, there are laws of physics that still apply. I saw his eyes roll and his legs wobble, and I laid into him until he fell on the floor. Then I cuffed him and ran down to the south transept, reaching for my cell. I dialed the captain.
“Stone! Where the hell are you?”
“In the church. Dehan isn’t here.” I swore violently and kicked a few pews. “Check the pickup and the Cherokee.”
“But… who’s in there?”
“They’re all dead, except Zak.”
I hung up and ran up the stairs. I had a few seconds before the 7th Cavalry came pouring in. I grabbed Zak by the scruff of his neck and woke him up with two powerful slaps. His eyes stared at me like animated saucers. I leaned down real close to him and snarled, “You have fifteen seconds, Zak. Where is she or I will gut you with a blunt screwdriver. Where is she?”
His head flopped back, and he closed his eyes. “I killed her, man. Out by the fucking lake at Camp Kaufmann.”
I stared at him. The church was rocking. I said, “No, you haven’t had time.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Detective Dehan! Where have you put Detective Dehan?”
He laughed. “Oh dear, have we lost Detective Dehan?”
There were feet running, tramping up the stairs, and a voice saying, “Put the gun down, Detective. Put the gun down!”
I half turned. There was a special agent pointing a gun at me, and the captain was coming up the stairs behind him. I put my gun in my holster and stood.
“Go fuck yourself, Special Agent. I just did your goddamn job for you.”
I pushed past the captain and went down the stairs to the nave. The place was crawling with Feds who kept giving me quizzical looks. They were crouching over the bodies and sealing off the area. The agent I had just told to fuck himself came down with the captain. He showed me his badge. “I am Special Agent Turner. Did you kill these men?”
“No, it was the Tooth Fairy. Of course I killed them.”
“There will have to be an investigation, Detective Stone…”
I burst out laughing. “In to how I used excessive force against six heavily armed Hell’s Angels who were about to open fire on federal agents? Be my guest. You done?”
His face flushed. “There is also the matter of the agent you knocked out!”
“He was pointing a gun at me. Now are we done? Because right now there is the matter of my partner, who will be murdered in two hours!” I turned and pointed at Zak, who was being led down the stairs. “And that man knows where she is!”
He leered at me as he was led past.
Turner scowled at me. “Make yourself available, Detective.”
“Screw you, Special Agent!”
He ignored me and walked out.
We were silent for a moment. Then the captain said, “Stone, professionally I cannot condone what you have done. But I get it, and I will back you all the way.”
I stared at him.
“Where is she, Captain?”
Twenty
I sat on the steps of the church. The drizzle had turned to freezing rain. The wet blacktop beyond the grass pulsed with red and blue over a silver sheen. The meat wagons had arrived, and the gurneys made a grim procession, driven by men and women in glistening masks, ferrying the dead out of the church, while the Feds set about the business of minutely analyzing the crime scene.
I was staring at Dehan’s phone. I had one hour and fifty minutes. I hadn’t a single lead. And with every passing minute, the chances of finding her alive diminished. I kept asking myself, where was she going? Why had she left the observation room?
I flipped to her call register. Five minutes before I’d finished the interrogation with David, she had received a call from a cell phone. If it had been Zak or Peter, she would have put her head in the door and told me. The fact that she hadn’t meant it was either private or she didn’t think it was important. Somebody she’d met recently? A guy she’d given her number to? But if she didn’t think it was important, why did she leave the observation room? I tried to visualize Dehan walking out of an interrogation to talk to a guy. It didn’t work. That wasn’t the Dehan I knew…
And so I kept going, around and around in circles.
I looked over at Newman, talking to a Fed.
“Captain!” He approached me across the muddy grass. I showed him the phone. “This number called Dehan five minutes before she was taken. Two gets you twenty it’s a prepaid, unregistered phone, but can you have it checked anyhow?”
He nodded and reached for his cell. “Sure.”
I scrolled down through her calls as he walked away. I could hear him saying, “Yeah, trace a number for me, will you…?”
There was no record of that number having called her before or of her calling that number. So the chances of the call being related to some private, personal matter were slim at best. Which meant it was a call related to work, to this case…
Slowly, as the rain fell on the gleaming cars and vans and the black
top, and the icy air crept off the river and felt its way into my muscles and my blood, the clear, simple reality began to dawn on me. This son of a bitch was all about showing you things the wrong way around. His game was to take the obvious and show it to you so that it looked like the opposite of what it was. The photograph was classic. That photograph was like a picture of him. It represented everything that he was about. Everything was the wrong way around and focused on the wrong person. That was him. That was the essence of how he operated.
All along, the focus had been on David. All along, the picture had been framed around David, with him as the focal point. But who was the photographer? Who was holding the camera and focusing the lens? Who had created the picture in the first place? Somebody nearby. Somebody clever. Somebody disciplined and organized. Somebody who was almost a mirror image of David.
I stood and walked to Turner, who was standing by one of the bureau vans.
“You got a computer I can use?”
He looked at me like I was a piece of shit somebody had failed to clean up. I sighed.
“Detective Dehan will die in less than two hours if I don’t find out where she is. I may have an idea, but I need a computer. Will you let me use one or not?”
He made an ugly face that even his mother would have wanted to slap. “I’m busy.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and leaned real close to his ear. “Turner, if you don’t give me a computer, first I am going to blow your testicles off. Then I am going to sue you for Detective Dehan’s wrongful death. I will take your job, your house, your car. I will break up your marriage, and I will make sure your kids hate your miserable guts for the rest of their lives. I will not stop, I will not desist, until I destroy you completely.”
I pulled back a little so he could look into my eyes and know that I meant it. He stared at me. I wasn’t shit anymore. Now I was a freak. I was moving up in the world. He leaned into the van and said, “Jerry, give me my laptop.”
