groaned, wishing he was dead. He didn’t know it was possible to feel this sick.
“I have to get out of this van,” Eldrick said.
“Shut up, Abdul!”
Eldrick had forgotten: his name was Abdul Malik now. It felt weird to hear himself being called Abdul, he, Eldrick, a proud black man, a proud American for most of his life. Feeling as sick as he did now, he wished he’d never changed it. Converting in prison was the dumbest thing he’d ever done.
All that shit was in the back. There was a lot of it, in all kinds of canisters and boxes. Some of it had leaked out, and now it was killing them. It had killed Bibi already. The dummy had opened a canister when they still were down in the vault. He was immensely strong and he wrenched the lid off. Why did he do that? Eldrick could picture him holding the canister up. “There’s nothing in here,” he’d said. Then he’d held it to his nose.
Within a minute, he started coughing. He just sort of sank down to his knees. Then he was on all fours, coughing. “I have something in my lungs,” he said. “I can’t get it out.” He started gasping for air. The sound was horrible.
Ezatullah walked up and shot him in the back of the head.
“Believe me, I did him a favor,” he’d said.
Now, the van was passing through a tunnel. The tunnel was long and narrow and dark, with orange lights zooming by overhead. The lights made Eldrick dizzy.
“I have to get out of this van!” he shouted. “I have to get out of this van! I have to…”
Ezatullah turned around. His gun was out. He pointed it at Eldrick’s head.
“Quiet! I’m on the phone.”
Ezatullah’s sliced up face was flushed red. He was sweating.
“You gonna kill me the way you did Bibi?”
“Ibrahim was my friend,” Ezatullah said. “I killed him out of mercy. I will kill you just to shut you up.” He pressed the muzzle of the gun against Eldrick’s forehead.
“Shoot me. I don’t care.” Eldrick closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Ezatullah had turned back around. They were still in the tunnel. The lights were too much. A sudden wave of nausea passed through Eldrick, and a great up-rushing spasm gripped his body. His stomach clenched and he tasted acid in his throat. He bent over and threw up on the floor between his shoes.
A few seconds passed. The stench wafted up into his face, and he wretched again.
Oh God, he begged silently. Please let me die.
Chapter 7
5:33 a.m.
East Harlem, Borough of Manhattan
Luke held his breath. Loud noises were not his favorite thing, and one hell of a loud noise was coming.
He stood completely still in the bleak light of a tenement building in Harlem. His gun was out, his back pressed to the wall. Behind him, Ed Newsam stood in almost the exact same pose as his. In front of them in the narrow hallway, half a dozen helmeted and flak-jacketed SWAT team members stood on either side of an apartment door.
The building was dead quiet. Dust motes hung in the air. Moments before, a small robot had slid a tiny camera scope beneath the door, looking for explosives attached to the other side. Negative. Now, the robot had retreated.
Two SWAT guys stepped up with a heavy battering ram. It was a swing-type, an officer holding the handle on each side. They didn’t make a sound. The SWAT team leader held up his fist. His index finger appeared.
That was one.
Middle finger. Two.
Ring finger…
The two men reared back and swung the ram. BAM!
The door exploded inward as the rammers ducked back. The four others swarmed in, suddenly shrieking, “Down! Down! Get DOWN!”
Somewhere down the hallway, a child started crying. Doors opened, heads peeped out, then ducked back in. It was one of those things around here. Sometimes the cops came and broke down a neighbor’s door.
Luke and Ed waited about thirty seconds until SWAT had secured the apartment. The body was on the floor in the living room, much as Luke suspected it might be. He barely looked at it.
“All clear?” he said to the SWAT leader. The guy glared at Luke just a little bit. There had been a brief argument when Luke commandeered this team. These guys were NYPD. They weren’t chess pieces for the feds to move around on a whim. That’s what they wanted Luke to know. Luke was fine with that, but a terrorist attack was hardly one man’s whim.
“All clear,” the team leader said. “That’s probably your subject right there.”
“Thank you,” Luke said.
The guy shrugged and looked away.
Ed kneeled by the body. He carried a fingerprint scanner with him. He took prints from three of the fingers.
“What do you think, Ed?”
He shrugged. “I preloaded Ken Bryant’s prints from the police database on here. We should know if we have a match in a few seconds. Meanwhile, you’ve got obvious ligature marks and swelling. The body is still somewhat warm. Rigor mortis has set in, but is not complete. The fingers are turning blue. I’d say he died the same way as the security guards at the hospital, of strangulation, roughly eight to twelve hours ago.”
He looked up at Luke. There was a glint in his eyes. “If you want to take his pants down for me, I can get a rectal temperature reading, and narrow the time a little better.”
Luke smiled and shook his head. “No thanks. Eight to twelve hours is fine. Just tell me: is it him?”
Ed glanced at his scanner. “Bryant? Yeah. It’s him.”
Luke pulled his phone and dialed Trudy. On the other end, her phone rang. Once, twice, three times. Luke glanced around at the dreary bleakness of the apartment. The living room furniture was old, with ripped upholstery, and stuffing coming out of the arms of the sofa. A threadbare rug was splayed on the floor, and empty takeout boxes and plastic utensils were strewn across the table. Heavy black curtains were tacked over the windows.
Trudy’s voice came on, alert, almost musical. “Luke,” she said. “What’s it been? Half an hour?”
“I want to talk about the missing janitor.”
“Ken Bryant,” she said.
“Right. He’s not missing anymore. Newsam and I are at his apartment. We have a positive ID on him. He died about eight to twelve hours ago. Strangled, like the guards.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I want you to access his bank accounts. He probably had direct deposit from his job at the hospital. Start with that one and work your way out from there.”
“Um,
