Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

So it's okay to kill these people.

They'll fall to the ground like dark leaves.

Chop chop chop chopchopchop…

He'll… click… he'll spin around, like a top, like a toy Tye might like, and he'll spread the bullets throughout the crowd. Bullets from two guns.

Then he'll get into the car and check his messages and if the man who tells him things still hasn't called then he and Tye will drive until they find… click… they find California.

Somebody will tell him where it is.

It can't be that hard to find. It's somewhere Out West. He remembers that.

Is the Digger behind him?

In front?

Beside?

Parker Kincaid, separated from the other agents, walked in a large, frantic circle near the Vietnam Memorial, lost in a sea of people. Looking for a man in a dark coat. With a shopping bag. Wearing a crucifix.

Far too many people. Thousands of them. Ten thousand.

Cage was on the other side of the Memorial. Len Hardy was on Constitution Avenue. Baker and the other tactical officers were making a sweep from the other side of the Mall.

Parker was about to stop a group from walking down to the Memorial itself, send them to the safety of a cluster of officers, but then he paused.

He realized suddenly that he hadn't been thinking clearly.

Puzzles. Remember the puzzles.

Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens…

Then he understood his mistake. He'd been looking in the wrong places. He stepped aside, out of the way of the crowd, and examined the grounds near the Vietnam Memorial. He thought of the unsub's mazes and realized that the man would have known that by the third attack the agents would have some description of the Digger. He would've told the killer not to approach the Memorial along one of the sidewalks, where he could be spotted more easily; he should come in through the trees.

Parker turned quickly and disappeared into a thicket of maple and cherry trees. It was still crowded with people making their way to the Mall but he didn't stop to tell them to leave the area. His job now wasn't to be a caretaker, a helping hand, a father; he was a hunter-just like that night years ago when he stalked through his house, looking for the Boatman.

Searching for his prey.

Searching for a faceless man in a dark coat.

A man wearing a cross.

Henry Czisman was thirty feet behind Kincaid, walking past the Vietnam Memorial, when Kincaid turned suddenly and moved into a grove of trees.

Czisman followed, looking around him at the sea of people.

What a target the Digger would have here!

He could cut them down like grass.

Czisman's own pistol was in his hand, pointed at the ground. No one saw it; the crowd was distracted, wondering what was going on-with all the police and federal agents telling them to leave the Mall.

Kincaid walked steadily through the trees, Czisman now perhaps twenty feet behind him. Still, there were people everywhere-dozens separated him from Kincaid-and the document examiner had no idea he was being followed.

They were about thirty feet from the solemn black wall when Czisman saw a man in a dark overcoat step from behind a tree. It was a cautious, furtive movement and suggested that the man had been hiding. And when he walked toward the Memorial he moved too deliberately, his head down, focused on the ground for no reason, as if he were trying not to be noticed. He disappeared into the crowd not far from Kincaid.

Czisman trotted after him.

Suddenly Kincaid turned. He glanced at Czisman, away, then back again with a frown, realizing that he'd seen the face before but couldn't place it. Czisman turned away and ducked behind several large men carrying a cooler. He believed he lost Kincaid. He returned to his search, looking again for the man in the dark overcoat.

Where-?

Yes, yes, there he was! A man in his forties, completely nondescript. He was unbuttoning the coat, looking around with dull eyes at the crowds around him.

And then Czisman saw the flash. A flash of gold on the man's neck.

He wears a gold cross…

The agents in the bar had told him that the Digger wore a cross.

So here he is, Czisman thought. The Butcher, the Widow Maker, the Devil…

"Hey!" A voice called.

Czisman turned. It was Kincaid.

Now, he thought. Now!

Czisman lifted his revolver, aimed it toward his target.

"No!" Kincaid shouted, seeing the gun. "No."

But Czisman had no clear shot. There were too many people here. He danced to the side and pushed through a break in the crowd, knocking several people aside. He lost Kincaid.

Twenty feet away, the Digger-oblivious to both men-looked over the crowds like a hunter gazing at a huge flock of geese.

Czisman shoved aside a cluster of college students.

"What the fuck you doing, man?"

"Hey…"

Czisman ignored them. Where was Kincaid? Where?

Still no target! Too many people…

The Digger's coat fell open. In one of the inside pockets was a large, black machine gun.

But nobody sees him! Czisman thought. It's as if he's invisible.

Nobody knows. Families, children, just feet away from the killer…

The crowd seemed to swell with people. The police were directing everyone toward Constitution Avenue but many of them were remaining-so they wouldn't lose a good view of the fireworks, Czisman supposed.

The Digger was squinting, looking for a place to shoot from. He stepped onto a slight rise in the grass.

Kincaid emerged from the crowd.

Czisman pulled back the hammer of his pistol.

The limo had parked beside the Mall, near the box seats reserved for diplomats and members of Congress.

Mayor Kennedy and his wife climbed out, accompanied by C. P. Ardell.

"You have to dog us like this?" Claire asked the agent. "It's orders," Ardell said. "You understand."

Claire shrugged.

Understand? Kennedy thought. What he understood was that he was virtually under arrest and that he couldn't even avoid the humiliation of appearing in public in his own city without a baby-sitter.

Any hope that his career would survive tonight was being tidily laid to rest by a few glances at the people who stood near the reviewing stand watching him. The ambiguity of Slade Phillips's news report had been missed, or ignored, and it seemed that everyone here thought Kennedy was practically the Digger's partner.

Cameras flashed, capturing the stark images that would be identified in the papers tomorrow as "Mayor and Mrs. Jerry Kennedy." He waved to some of the people on the viewing stand and, with grave tact, fielded cursory comments such as "Where've you been hiding?"

"How you doing, Jerry?" No one here really wanted answers; they were hard at work distancing themselves from the soon-to-be-former mayor.

The other question Kennedy heard was: "Heard you weren't coming to the fireworks tonight, Jerry. What brings you out here?"

Well, what brought him out was Claire.

The secretary of the African-American Teachers' Association had called and, only moderately embarrassed, had said it would be better for him not to attend the party he was supposed to be keynote speaker at. "Probably best for everybody."

Well, he'd have been perfectly content to slink back home. But sitting in his City Hall office beside him on the couch, Claire had had a different idea. "Let's get drunk and go watch the goddamn fireworks."

"I don't know," Kennedy had said dubiously.

"Well, I do. You're not the sulking kind, honey. Go out with your head high."

And he'd thought for a few seconds and decided it was the smartest thing he'd heard all night. She'd tracked down a bottle of Moët and they'd drunk it on the way here.