Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

Beyond the picture window, the lights of the Strip were on a low simmer, daybreak still barely a notion at the horizon. The spectacular city view had been freed once and for all, the curtains torn from the rod and shredded at Pavlo’s hand. Traces of Nastya’s lipsticked message remained, red smudges on the pane.

Yuri and Misha entered and stood like waiters waiting to be acknowledged. Plucking a red bra from the mound, Pavlo sliced through one cup, then the other. “What?”

“The police responded to Abara’s barn,” Misha said, “off our tip. They are processing the evidence now.”

“Good.” Pavlo cut the buttons from a sheer blouse, one by one. “And Overbay?”

Yuri said, “We are watching the airports and-”

“Find him.” Pavlo’s hands stopped, then resumed, making an incision down the length of the blouse, splitting it between the shoulders. “Don’t watch. Do.”

“We have been spending money to gather addresses,” Yuri said. “Overbay’s buddy pals from the war. His friends. Guesthouses or second homes. The wife’s parents have condo in Arrowhead. His father has cabin in Bouquet Canyon. A doctor friend of wife has Malibu beach house. Those kinds of places. It is how they track criminals.”

Pavlo said, “What of the wife’s old boyfriend?”

“He drove east after crossing us. As of last night, he checked in to a motel in Ohio. No phone calls to or from him. He is useless to them.”

Pavlo snatched the sheaf of papers from Yuri’s hand and flipped through them.

“How much did this cost me?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

Pavlo handed the papers back and turned his attention to a pair of panties on the bed. “There are four of you. Split the list in half and go. Start with nearest places first.” He pushed a strip of black lace across the blade until it frayed, then gave way. Misha had exited, but Yuri remained, his big swollen face the picture of concern. “Go!” Pavlo yelled. “Leave me!”

The door clicked quietly closed. Pavlo cut through more black lace, then shoved the razor savagely through the crotch, tearing, ripping. He was sweating, his arms straining against the fabric, and he realized he was burying a roar in his throat. A spasm of fury seized him. He raked the mound of sliced fabric off the duvet and watched the strips and ribbons scatter across the floor, the remnants of his broken daughter. But it wasn’t until he turned the razor on himself, carving a furrow up his ink-sheathed forearm and releasing the pain that had been scouring his insides, that he finally understood the sweet agony Nastya had found in the blade.

The 6:00 A.M. cold whipped through the imprecise seal of the not-so-weatherproof Wrangler’s soft top, the stream blowing across Nate’s forehead as steady and loud as cranked-on air-conditioning. Praying that Eddie Yeap would be as usual the first coroner at the morgue, Nate input the number into the cell phone he’d borrowed from Janie and stepped on the gas. Before he risked his next move, he had to know if he was wanted yet for the murder of Agent Abara, and Eddie was, he hoped, the guy with his hands inside the guts of the case. As the line rang, Nate ran through the reasoning he’d constructed as he’d flown down the freeway.

A murder in Chatsworth would fall under the jurisdiction of the Devonshire station, which meant the body and the crime scene should be processed by LAPD. Because Abara was an FBI agent, the case would go federal, but Nate was banking on the fact that no one would want to transport evidence across the country to the lab at Quantico, because of both the delay and the risk of deterioration of the chillingly fresh evidence. Which meant that his best bet for getting information on the case’s status was from-

Eddie Yeap picked up. “Yullo?”

“Hey, Eddie. It’s Nate.”

“Nate Bank-Hero Nate?”

The greeting boded well-not a salutation offered to a cop killer.

“Listen,” Nate said, “I caught a death notification for that agent killed out in Chatsworth. Abara. I have to go tell his mother.”

“I thought FBI handled their own.”

“I guess they’re as short-staffed with this stuff as we are. Anyway, Brown asked me to handle it.”

“You coming in?”

“Later. But I was wondering if you could give me a preview.”

“Well, Jonesy’s in bad shape. Heh. They used an honest-to-God rescue saw. You believe that?”

Nate parked at a meter a few blocks away from the Police Administration Building. If things went bad and he had to bolt, he didn’t want to get stuck in a parking garage. “Any physical evidence?”

“I got bupkis off what was left of Jonesy, but scuttlebutt is the latent-print unit pulled something off the rescue saw.”

Climbing out, Nate paused. Then slammed the door, a little harder than necessary, and started briskly toward the building. “Where are they with that?”

“Prints are at the lab now.”

“Already?”

“Fast-tracked. Killed an agent, ya know. Heh.”

“When do you think they’ll have results?”

“I’d say any minute.”

Nate picked up the pace, just shy of a jog. “Ask you one more question?”

“Course.”

“I assume FBI’s handling the investigation. But who’s the detective liaison?”

“Ken Nowak.”

By arriving unreasonably early, Nate hoped to dodge colleagues and complications. Even so, as he stepped out from the elevator with an empty duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he proceeded cautiously, unsure what he’d find. Sergeant Jen Brown’s office was dark and most of the cubicles empty. Unnoticed, he picked his way toward his desk.

A loud voice startled him. “Surprised you’d show your face around here.”

He turned, Ken Nowak drawing into sight around a partition wall. Leaning back in his chair, that hockey puck of a key ring resting next to his propped-up loafers.

Ken lowered his feet and settled forward with a touch of menace. “After that whole airport-terrorist incident, I mean.”

Nate released a breath as evenly as he could manage. “It was just a mix-up.”

“I bet. What you doing here?”

“Picking up my stuff.”

“You don’t need that. ” With a smirk, Ken gestured at the empty duffel hanging from Nate’s shoulder. “They already took care of your shit for you.”

Nate glanced over at his desk. Sure enough, his personal things were boxed and waiting. His non personal things-files, forms, research-appeared to be gone.

“Oh,” he said, hoping he looked appropriately dismayed. “Well, I have to wait for Brown anyway. She had some stuff for me to sign, I’m guessing severance paperwork so I don’t sue anyone.”

Ken elected not to take up the feigned attempt at worker camaraderie.

Nate took a breath. “How ’bout you? Isn’t this a little early?”

“I been here half the night. Big case, FBI agent iced out in Chatsworth. Literally. I’m waiting on print results from the lab.” Ken turned back to his desk and took a sip of coffee. “We get our hands on the piece of shit who did it, ain’t gonna be a pretty sight.”

Nate managed a nod, staring at the phone just beyond Ken’s knuckles. As soon as it rang, he was dead. He moved swiftly to his desk and powered up the computer. What he needed, what he’d come for, were weapons. Real weapons, as in assault rifles, handguns, C4. A virtual armory. Like the one Danny Urban had collected, the one that had been seized by the cops and put into an evidence locker down the hall.

The problem was, Nate didn’t know which evidence locker. But the database did.

His muscles had gone tense, braced to hear the ring of Ken’s phone. Typing furiously, he called up the log-in screen and keyed in his user name and password.