Since the bar was closest, I went there first. The front door had cracked since the snowstorm. The split ran about head-to-waist-high on the right near the hinges. I reached for the knob and found it unlocked. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. A shaded, slender figure hopped over the bar and rushed toward me.

  I smelled her perfume before her arms wrapped around my neck. Her lips pressed against mine. Peach Schnapps and gum. Reminded me of younger years.

  "You doing all right?" My hands closed around her waist.

  Her grip on my neck tightened and she said nothing.

  Had something happened with the Russian? Had he tried to hurt her? I swept the room, spotted him perched on a bar stool near the kitchen door. He hoisted a sweaty glass of water to his lips, took a sip, and then nodded.

  "Clarissa, what's going on?"

  "McSweeney showed up a while ago, a bit frantic. Said all she had was a bag packed. All she had time for, apparently. She wanted me to go with her. Said I was in danger." She paused and bit her bottom lip. Her eyes darted back and forth, focusing on me, then the door, then another spot.

  "All right, calm down and think. Did she say why?"

  Clarissa shook her head, tight and terse. "No, she just repeated that I was in danger and should go with her. And, you know, if you had called and said to do it, I'd have gone. But, I barely know the woman. And besides, I feel safe with that guy over there."

  I glanced at the Russian again. He'd returned to acting like he wasn't paying attention.

  "OK, we'll get this figured out. All right?"

  She nodded.

  "Go ahead and get back behind the bar. Let me talk to him for a minute."

  She took the long way, rather than hopping back over. I gestured toward the Russian. We met at the other end of the bar, away from the sole occupied table and talked.

  I showed him a picture of the ex-SEAL from the brownstone. Though they were twenty years or so apart in age, their paths might have crossed at some point. He took a long look at the picture, frowned, and handed it back.

  "I can say he looks familiar, but from where, I don't know. If you want, I'll pass it around and see if anyone knows him, of him, or his last known location."

  After debating how much to tell him, I said, "I've got that last part, and he's not moving on from it."

  The Russian lifted an eyebrow and leaned forward a couple inches.

  I nodded. "Ran into him yesterday, but it wasn't me. Not saying I didn't leave him in bad shape, but certainly not enough for him to end up with a toe tag. Someone came along later. I only have a general idea who, and I think it's someone hell-bent on clean up."

  The man didn't press for details. He'd left behind this world some time ago. If I'd asked for additional help, perhaps he would have considered it. As it was, he seemed content to stick to acting as Clarissa's bodyguard.

  And I was content to let him.

  I knew what I faced in the Old Man and Frank; the real danger was the unknown. What other contact did al-Sharaa have in the U.S. that would be willing to assassinate a target for him? I understood the Old Man's motivation. Did money drive the other person, or was the catalyst ideological?

  McSweeney's words to Clarissa meant something. For her to be afraid, it had to be someone, or some group, that could operate without fear of the NYPD. The only way to know for sure was to find the woman.

  Once again, that led me back to Brett.

  I spent another thirty minutes at the bar, at Clarissa's insistence. She had the cook whip me up a burger topped with fried eggs. I wasn't hungry, but I ate it anyway. I downed three cups of coffee. One before the meal. One during. One after. Figured that'd be enough to keep me going through the four hour drive ahead of me.

  I paid her for the meal. She made a show out of not accepting it, but did. Then I left.

  Before heading to the garage to get the car, I decided to stop by McSweeney's apartment. I had to wait ten minutes in the cold before managing to catch the door as someone exited. I took the stairwell to her floor. The carpet on the landing felt spongy under my feet, and I detected a hint of mildew in the air. A drop of water hit my hand as I reached for the door. It had fallen from a pipe that ran along the ceiling.

  I stopped in front of McSweeney's apartment and pressed my ear to the door. The old paint grated on my skin like sandpaper. I heard nothing. I reached for the handle. Surprisingly, it was unlocked.

  I wasn't sure what I expected to see. A bookshelf toppled over, perhaps. Her clothes strewn about, maybe. Furniture overturned, for sure.

  There was none of that.

  There was nothing at all.

  CHAPTER 57

  I STOOD IN the empty apartment, aware that just a few days ago it had been fully furnished. A quick call to Brandon confirmed for me that Reese McSweeney was a detective in the NYPD, and that she hadn't shown up for work in two days. Even her partner hadn't heard from her. Was this premeditated? Had McSweeney planned to flee?

  I continued through her barren apartment. It smelled of lemon and pine trees. Reminded me of Saturdays as a kid, when my mother had my brother, sister, and me clean the house. She had knick-knacks on every shelf. It was my job to take them off, clean each individually, and then dust the shelf. If I didn't put them back in exactly the right place, there'd be no television for me that weekend. And I hated missing my Saturday afternoon wrestling.

  The discoloration of the hardwood floors was the only sign that there had been furniture in the place. I moved from the living area to her bedroom. Traced the position of the bed. Her dress blues still hung in the closet, along with a pair of jeans and a sweater. Nothing else. I pulled them off their hangers and searched the pockets, hoping for a note or receipt or anything that might give a clue. Came up empty. Why had these items been left behind? Someone on the run wouldn't have packed everything up; they'd have left far more behind. And nothing had given me the impression that McSweeney had been planning to take off.

  Maybe that was it. She had disappeared; but not by her own doing.

  I gave the closet a once-over, looking for any false spots on the wall where a cut-out existed. A place where a safe had been installed. Finding nothing, I left the room, wiping my prints from the doorknobs. I checked the bathroom and linen closet off the hallway. They were as barren as the rest of the place. I made sure to wipe everything down in the living room and kitchen, and then I left.

  The stairwell door opened a second after I shut McSweeney's. I stood there, facing the door, and knocked. A slender, raven-haired woman in her early twenties approached. She made eye contact as she passed.

  "Excuse me," I said. "Have you seen the woman that lives here recently?"

  "Wasn't friendly with her." She spoke with an Eastern European accent. "But there were movers here yesterday. Guess she found a new place."

  Perhaps she had.

  I waited until the woman disappeared into the safety of her apartment. She cast one last glance in my direction as she slipped through the opening. Afterward, I made my way to the same stairwell and descended to the main level.

  The car wasn't far away, but I had another stop I wanted to make before leaving. The brownstone. I wasn't sure when I'd be back, and the scene would never be as secure as it was at this moment. Not saying it had been kept pristine, but every day that passed meant someone else could have trampled on possible evidence.

  I hailed the first taxi to approach. A man with a short gray beard and a bald head and a cigarette dangling from his thin lips asked me where I wanted to go. I had him drop me off four blocks north and east of the brownstone.

  The path I walked took me past the café where Bear and I had sat in the freezing weather, drinking lukewarm coffee, moments before we were to do our job.

  Moments before everything changed.

  It had all started at the café.

  Things seemed uncertain at that time. They always did. And it was the same state of constant flux I'd grown accustomed to. But this, now, I had no idea where the next few moves I would make would take me. That didn't sit well.

  A short walk later I saw a scorched skeleton rising from the ground, squished between two renovated buildings, amid smoldering ruins and ashes and rubble.

  My head swung like it was attached to a swivel. My gaze didn't linger long on any one spot. And it was pointless. If whoever had burned down the brownstone had a spotter, they wouldn't be visible on the street.

  And so I turned, and looked up to the same spot where I had waited days ago, across the street from the now-burned-down brownstone. A shadowy figure backed away from the window. I reached behind my back, wrapped my hand around the pistol's grip. I moved toward the door. Walking, jogging, running, jumping past the stairs. Inside the mold and mildew hit me. My nostrils itched and my lungs burned. I ignored the sensation, knowing that in a few short seconds, it'd pass.

  I heard the sound of soles squeaking on linoleum. It came from above. I took the stairs two at a time, then paused on the landing. A door slammed shut on a higher floor. I passed by the second floor and continued on to the third. The dim hallway stretched out in front of me, four or five apartments on either side. Pale light peeked out from under the doors. I approached each slowly and cautiously.

  All I wanted to see was the glow emanating unblocked from under the door and a pinprick of light through the peephole. Every door but the last on the right met the requirements. I almost didn't notice. At the final second, the dot of white disappeared for an instant. Someone could've passed by, on their way from one room to the next. But when I looked down, I noticed the last two inches on both sides of the space under the door were darkened.

  Someone was standing there, inches from me, on the opposite side of a dented hunk of solid-core wood, and they weren't moving. Were they waiting for me?

  This all happened in a couple of seconds. I never stopped moving. The door to the other stairwell approached. I wrapped my hand around the knob.

  The door behind me cracked open.

  I held my pistol down by my thigh. Turned my head to the right, slightly, so that I could see the door in my peripheral vision. Yellow-white light bled into the hallway. A shadow filled some of the space. They took a deep breath, as if to steel themselves. An exhale, grunt, hand gripping the doorframe, black barrel of a pistol emerging.

  I spun, back pushing through the heavy hallway door.

  He grunted, emerged from the apartment. I didn't attempt to identify the man. My focus remained on the pistol, which he angled at me while contorting his body.

  I held the sidearm waist-high, and instinctively fired. The suppressor muffled some of the sound, but not all. If anyone in the adjoining apartments was near their front door, the sound might be enough to give them cause to investigate. Or just call 9-1-1.

  The man shot back, but missed. Plaster exploded to my left and rained down on me. The deafening sound echoed throughout the stairwell and hallway. My ears sang.

  I fired again. Both shots had hit him. Crimson blooms formed at his lower gut and dead-center on his chest. He fell, landed sideways. Ragged and sporadic breathing followed.

  A door opened. An old woman poked her head out. Curlers weighed down her blue-tinted hair.

  "Get back in there."

  She froze at the sight of a pistol aimed at her face.

  "Now," I said.

  She complied. I returned my attention to the dying man on the ground.

  "Who are you?"

  The man said nothing.

  I rose and placed the heel of my shoe against his stomach. "Who the hell are you?"

  His eyes rolled back in his head.

  I leaned over and searched his pockets, all the while keeping my eyes up, focused on the open doorway to the apartment. Did he live there? Or had it been the only one he found unlocked? I considered tempting fate and investigating, but after coming up with a wallet and cell phone, I left the man to die and made my way down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 58

  THE TEMPERATURE WAS in the mid-forties. Might as well have been ten below. The sweat that coated my face, back, and chest cooled and felt like ice melting on my skin. The sidewalks were deserted. I heard no sirens. That old woman was probably cowering behind her door or under a table. Eventually, someone would walk out of their apartment and find a man dying or dead in the middle of their hallway.

  I wasted no time moving, heading back the way I came, past the café. I took a look inside in an attempt to determine if Clarissa's friend was working. Didn't see her. Perhaps she had seen what, or who, had started the fire at the brownstone. I had no shortage of potential candidates. Brett could have come back and done it himself. Not likely, but possible. Maybe McSweeney on her way out of town. Frank, the CIA, the Old Man, or anyone else with a vested interest in not being indicted could be responsible.

  There were better things I could spend my time worrying about. That's what I told myself. The fact that someone had been watching over the remains of the building, and then attempted to kill me, told me that I needed to keep pursuing the investigation. Were they looking for me, though? Had they expected that I would return? Maybe the shooter had been there to watch for anyone suspicious. But he'd fled when I spotted him. He hadn't made an attempt on me until I passed by his hideout. Could have let me go. Instead, he attacked.

  He'd been waiting for me. Maybe not only me, but I was on his list.

  I pulled his phone out and checked the contact list. Empty. I navigated to the recent calls list. One number. I didn't recognize the area code. Could have been Maryland. Maybe Montana. One of those that I was confused by every time I saw it. And it really didn't matter. Presumably, the number was a forwarder and routed around the country. Like mine. Like Bear's. Nothing like Brandon's. But then, whose was? The timestamp indicated the man had called the number around the time I was outside the building. Further evidence he'd recognized me and reported my presence.

  And whoever he reported it to had authorized him to strike if I came closer.

  I only had one shot at this. After my call, they'd know their man was down. They'd abandon the number, their position, everything.

  The café provided shelter from both the wind and prying eyes. And it was empty except for a portly red-cheeked guy behind the counter who didn't seem to care I hadn't approached him for a cup of coffee.

  And I could have used one about then. But this was more important.

  I called Brandon on my cell and asked him if he could link up to the phone I had taken off the man in the apartment building. He had me sort through various menus and read to him combinations of letters and numbers that made little sense to me but had him giggling like a child watching cartoons.

  "All right, Jack," he said. "When you redial that number, I'll capture every step of the way. You just need to hold the line for twenty seconds. You got that?"

  "I think I can manage to count that high."

  "Good. How're you gonna keep them on the line?"

  "No clue, Brandon. Not a single friggin' clue." I glanced up at the counter. The guy had taken a seat on a stool and paged through a magazine. I couldn't tell which one. "OK. I'm gonna dial now."

  "Wait, wait, wait," Brandon said. "I'm not quite ready."

  I approached the counter. The guy looked up from his magazine. I spotted a blonde straddling a motorcycle on the page it was opened to. The man's cheeks grew redder.

  "Help you, sir?" he said.

  "Restroom?"

  He aimed a finger down a narrow hall, waited for me to pass, then went back to his stool and his literature.

  "All right," I said. "How about now, Brandon?"

  "Yup, I got you, your location, so on. Go ahead and make that call."

  I placed my cell on the sink and grabbed the faucet. It felt grimy, pitted, like it had powdered cleaner caked on it. I turned it, then cupped my hands under the cool stream of water that fell into the sink. I splashed some on my face. My lips parted, allowing some into my mouth, swishing it around, then spitting it out. I cut the water, grabbed a paper towel, and dried off.

  After a deep breath, I highlighted the number and pressed send. There was a delay as the call routed through multiple switches, possibly including a government server.

  Finally I heard the half-burst of a static-laden ring. Another, a full one, followed. On the fifth ring a man answered.

  "Got an update?"

  I hesitated while attempting to place the voice. It didn't draw a match. Instead of answering him, I groaned.

  "Vogel?" He paused, presumably waiting for me to answer. I didn't. "What the hell's going on?"

  Again, I answered with a groan. The countdown in my head continued. We were halfway there.

  "Vogel, Christ, stay where you are. I'll get the team over there now."

  "Wait," I said in as gravely a voice as I could muster.

  "What?"

  I grunted a few times, took a deep, wheezy breath, then choked. Quite a production, and in all, it ate up five more seconds, which meant the twenty Brandon required were up. Best to add a few more to be on the safe side.

  "I can't keep this line open," the man said. "Stay put. I'll have someone there in a couple minutes."

  The call ended. A phone icon flashed several times on the screen, then disappeared. The time stared back at me. I grabbed my cell off the sink.

  "Tell me you got it?"

  "I got something," Brandon said. "It'll take me a while to figure this out. That call went all over the world, but if anyone can trace it, I'm the guy."

  "Love your confidence, man."

  "Always said I'd be making millions in the big leagues if my body hadn't been so ravaged."

  I smiled, said, "Call me when you know something. Also, look up this Vogel guy. Can't be many with that last name in the community. I'm gonna make my way to the car and get moving."

  For a moment, I stood in front of the sink, regarding myself in the mirror. With a nod to my reflection, I tucked both phones in my pocket and exited the restroom. I ordered a cup of black coffee from the red-faced guy, then left the café through the front door.

 

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