Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

"But," Lukas said, "there must be hundreds of fatalities every year in the armed forces. Was it an accident? A training exercise? Combat?"

"Desert Storm?" Cage suggested.

"How old was the unsub?" Parker asked.

Lukas grabbed the medical examiner's preliminary report. She read, looked up. "Mid-forties."

Black…

Then Parker understood. He said, "The black wall!"

Lukas nodded. "The Vietnam Memorial."

"Someone he knew," Hardy said, "was killed in 'Nam. Brother, sister. Maybe his wife was a nurse."

Cage said, "But that was thirty years ago. Could something like this resurface now?"

"Oh, sure," Evans said. "If your unsub didn't work through his anger in therapy it's been festering. And New Year's Eve's a time for resolutions and people taking bold action-even destructive action. There'll be more suicides tonight than on any other night of the year."

"Oh, Jesus," Lukas said.

"What?"

"I just realized-the Memorial's on the Mall. There're going to be two hundred thousand people there. For the fireworks. We've got to close off that part of the park."

"It's already packed," Parker said. "They've been camping out for hours."

"But, Jesus," Cage said, "we need more manpower." He called Artie, the building's night entrance guard, who made an announcement over the PA that all available agents in the building were needed in the lobby for an emergency assignment.

Lukas called Jerry Baker and told him to get his tactical agents to the northwest portion of the Mall. She then paged the deputy director on call for the evening. He called back immediately. She spoke to him for a moment then hung up.

She looked at the team. "The dep director's on his way over. I'm going to meet him downstairs to brief him then I'll meet you at the Memorial."

Cage put his coat on. Geller stood and checked his weapon. It looked alien in his hands, which were undoubtedly much more accustomed to holding a computer mouse.

Lukas said, "Hold on, Tobe. You're going home."

"I can-"

"That's an order. You've already done enough."

He protested a bit more. But in the end Lukas won-though only after promising that she'd call him if she needed any other tech assistance. "I'll have my laptop with me," he said, as if he couldn't imagine ever being more than three feet from a computer.

Lukas walked over to Hardy. "Thanks, Detective. That was damn good police work."

He grinned. "Sony I fucked up with the mayor. He-"

She waved her hand, acknowledging the apology. Offered a slight smile. "Everything's right as rain." Then she asked him, "You still want a piece of the action tonight?"

"Oh, you bet I do."

"Okay, but keep to the rear. Tell me true… You really know how to shoot?"

"I sure as hell do. And I'm pretty good too… if it's not windy." The young detective, still grinning, pulled on his trench coat.

Parker, feeling the weight of the gun in the pocket, donned his jacket. Lukas glanced at him dubiously. "I'm going," he said firmly in response to her glance.

She said, "You don't have to, Parker. It's okay. You've done enough too."

He smiled at her. "Just point and shoot, right?"

She hesitated then said, "Just point and shoot."

Here it comes, here it comes…

My God, look at them all!

A dozen, two dozen agents running out of FBI headquarters. Some in bulletproof vests, some not.

Henry Czisman took one last sip of Jim Beam and rested the brown bottle on the back seat of his rental car, which reeked of tobacco and whiskey. He crushed out his Marlboro in the overflowing ashtray.

They ran toward their cars. One by one they started up and sped away

He didn't follow. Not yet. He waited, patient as an adder.

Then Czisman saw the tall gray-haired agent, Cage, push through the front door. Looking behind him. And, yes! There he was: Parker Kincaid.

Though Czisman had not told the FBI agents everything, he had in fact been a journalist for most of his life. And a good one. He could read people as perceptively as any street cop. And while they were undoubtedly running their retinal scans and voice stress analysis on him in their interrogation room he was running his own tests. Less high-tech and more intuitive, his were nonetheless just as accurate as the Bureau's. And one of the things he'd decided was that Jefferson was not Jefferson at all. When the man had left the headquarters in a hurry and gotten into his own car several hours ago Czisman had sent the man's license plate to a private eye in Hartford, Connecticut, and had gotten his real identity. Parker Kincaid. A simple search on the Internet had revealed he was the former head of the Bureaus Document Division.

If the Bureau was using a former agent as a consultant he must be good. Which meant he was the one worth following. Not bureaucratic Cage. Not unfeeling Lukas.

Pausing to zip up his leather jacket, Kincaid looked around to orient himself then climbed into an unmarked car with Cage and another young agent or officer, an earnest man in a trench coat. They turned on a red light on the dash and sped quickly west-toward the Mall.

Czisman easily slipped into the motorcade of cars, which were moving so frantically that no one noticed him. Around Eighteenth Street though, near Constitution Avenue, the crowds and traffic were so thick that the Bureau vehicles were forced to stop and the agents climbed out, ran to the Mall. Czisman was close behind.

Cage and Kincaid stood together, looking over the crowds. Kincaid pointed toward the west side of the Vietnam monument and Cage nodded toward the east. They separated and moved off in their respective directions, the man in the trench coat trotting away from them both, toward Constitution.

Czisman was a heavy man and out of shape. His breath snapped in and out of his congested lungs and his heart pounded like a piston. But he managed to keep up with Parker Kincaid very easily, pausing only momentarily-to take the pistol from the sweaty waistband of his slacks and slip it into his coat pocket.

The Digger's coat is heavy.

Heavy from the weight of the guns.

From the weight of the clips, containing hundreds of rounds of.22…

Click, click…

… of… of.22 caliber long-rifle ammunition warning bullets can travel up to one mile do not allow children to shoot unsupervised.

But the Digger would never do that-let a child shoot unsupervised.

Not Tye. Never, ever, ever Tye.

Two nicely packed suppressors. Cotton and rubber, cotton and rubber.

You're the you're the you're best…

The machine guns are in the inside pockets of his nice blue or black overcoat, his Christmas present from Pamela. One of the pistols from the glove compartment of his Toyota is in the right outside pocket of his coat. Four more clips for the Uzis are in the left-hand pocket.

No bags, no puppies…

He's standing in shadows and none of the people nearby notice him. He looks for police or agents and sees none.

Tye is asleep in the back seat of the car, a block away. When the Digger left him his sticklike arms were folded over his chest.

This is what worries him the most-if the police start shooting or if the Digger has to shoot with the unsilenced pistols Tye might wake up from the sound. And then he won't sleep well.

He's also worried that the boy will be cold. The temperature keeps falling. But the Digger remembers that he tripled the blanket over Tye. He'll be all right. He's sleeping. Children are always all right when they're sleeping.

He is standing by himself watching some of the people who are about to die. He calls one last time on his cell phone and the lady who sounds like Ruth before the triangle of glass says, "You have no new messages."