Santoro did not comment.
“Very well,” said Gault. “We’re going to write this off. Perhaps the Goddess can find a way to spin this in our favor. In the meantime, put a couple of people you can trust on Ledger, and if the opportunity comes up kill the bloody bastard.”
“With pleasure.”
“Meanwhile, we have bigger fish to fry. The Inner Circle should be getting some very bad news right about now. You did good work setting that up,” Gault said grudgingly. “The Goddess is well pleased.”
“It is always my pleasure to serve the Goddess,” said Santoro.
He disconnected and drove randomly through the towns that adjoined Southampton. It hurt him that both of his victims had slipped the punch. Perhaps, if he was lucky and the grace of the Goddess touched his destiny, he would have another opportunity to kill those two. This time, however, he would do the job himself. Not once in his entire life had Santoro failed when he, rather than a team, was the instrument of death. Not once.
Chapter Fifty-seven
Crime Scene
Southampton, Pennsylvania
December 19, 6:06 P.M. EST
We crowded into the back of Black Bess. Top, Bunny, Ghost, and me. The others established a perimeter outside and nobody got past them.
I sat on the bunk opposite the prisoner. Ghost sat on the floor, his head rising above the level of the gurney, his dark eyes filled with predatory intensity. The shooter looked from me, to Ghost, to Top and Bunny and back again. It was evident he didn’t like what he saw in our faces. No reason he should. The TacV was wired for digital recording, and Top gave me a wink to indicate that it was running.
“Here’s the way it sits, dickhead,” I said to the shooter. “You’re in the shit up to your eyeballs. There are eight dead civilians and nineteen wounded. We’re with Homeland and you’ve been designated as an enemy combatant and a terrorist, so the Patriot Act just got shoved up your ass. That means you have no rights. You don’t get a lawyer, you don’t get to make a phone call, and you are about to vanish from the face of the earth.”
“Kiss my nut sac,” he said with a sneer. Even with the morphine it was a pretty good hard-guy act. But he was playing to a tough crowd.
I continued to smile. Bunny, his bulk filling the entire back of the truck, squatted on his heels and chewed gum. Top sat on a metal equipment case just above the shooter’s head, and his face was one that I wouldn’t have wanted to look into if I was this deep in my own crap.
“You’re going to be on suicide watch, so you won’t be sneaking out of this.” I kept my tone normal, my voice quiet and reasonable. Giving him information, not making threats. Letting him think he had bargaining room. “You’ll disappear into the system. You’ll get the very best medical care. You might even keep that hand. We’ll want you healthy because the stronger you are, the longer you’ll last in interrogation. Understand me, friend, you won’t hold out … you’ll just last longer. We will get every bit of information you have. No question about it.”
He grinned at me with bloody teeth. “Take your best shot, asshole.”
His accent was New Jersey. Local boy.
“Print him,” I said, and Bunny produced a small electronic device.
The shooter clutched his good hand into a fist.
Bunny popped his gum. “I can take prints off severed fingers, too, genius.”
Jersey Boy kept his fist clenched. He was playing this role to the end.
“Take ’em from the other hand,” said Top, nodding to the swollen tips of fingers that stuck out of the layers of gauze around Jersey Boy’s torn and shattered forearm.
Bunny left the fingers attached but he used the injured hand to take the prints. It got very loud in the TacV. Ghost broke into a stream of agitated barks, and I let him go for a while, then quieted him with a control word. He settled down, but he continued to stare at the shooter as if he was an unfinished lunch.
Jersey Boy lapsed into a breathless, panting silence. Greasy sweat glistened on his face.
Bunny checked each contact scan and then pressed the upload button that sent the high-res digital files to the satellite. MindReader would have them in ten seconds and we’d have a match in a couple of hours.
“You got one chance to make the rest of this process a lot less painful,” I said. “Talk to me now. Freely, openly, without coercion. You help us and I promise you that we will reward that cooperation.”
Jersey Boy shook his head. I had to give the guy points for balls—he had a real pair of clankers. No frigging brains at all, though, because I believe he actually thought he was going to tough it out.
Top must have been reading my thoughts. “Boy’s too stupid to know when someone’s handing him a lifeline.”
“That ain’t a lifeline, Tupac,” the shooter said. “You want to put me in jail for the rest of my life, go ahead. Put me in Gitmo if you want. Don’t matter a goddamn thing. My man Santoro will have me back on the street inside a month.”
“You think so?”
He raised his head and glared at me. “I know so. Do whatever you want. You dickwipes just stepped into a world of hurt bigger than anything you ever heard of. The Seven Kings are going to rip your world apart, Ledger. You and the rest of the DMS. You, that psychopath Church, that cunt O’Tree, these ass clowns here—all of you are already dead and you just don’t know it yet.”
Top grunted in real surprise. “Well, well,” he said, “ain’t that interesting as shit?”
Bunny blew a big pink bubble, popped it, and continued to chew. His poker face was still in place, but from the way the muscles at the corners of his jaw bunched and flexed I knew that he was probably as rattled as I was.
The shooter had said the name Santoro. That was a nice name. A Spanish name. Very interesting.
“The ‘Seven Kings,’ huh?” I said. “Why don’t you tell us all about them?”
“Why don’t you suck my—”
Without saying a word, Bunny reached out and grabbed Jersey Boy’s shattered wrist, gave it a light squeeze. It wouldn’t have dented a soda can, but the shooter screamed loud enough to hurt my ears.
Outside I heard the sergeant supervisor yelling indignantly, demanding to be let in. DeeDee’s voice cut him off in mid-protest. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it redirected his outrage from me to her.
When Bunny released Jersey Boy’s wrist the bandages were soaked through with blood and the man’s face was gray. Without taking my eyes off him, I said, “Top, tell the blues that we’re commandeering this prisoner on the grounds of national security. Have the rest of the team follow. Bunny, you’re driving.”
“Where we going, Boss?” Bunny asked as he clambered past me into the driver’s seat.
“Somewhere … quiet,” I said, and gave him directions to Tamanend Park.
“You’re digging your own grave, Ledger,” said the shooter. “We’re going to kill everyone you ever knew or loved. Your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your dog. You just signed their death warrants.”
I rose and leaned over the prisoner and bent my face to within an inch of his. I said nothing. No words could convey the outrage, naked fury, and bottomless contempt I felt, so instead I smiled at him. It wasn’t the Cop or the Modern Man smiling. This was the blood grin of the Warrior who crouched inside my head and knew that he was about to be let out to play.
The shooter must not have liked that smile, because after a few seconds the contemptuous grin he wore dimmed and then faded completely. And he looked very appropriately afraid.
Interlude Forty
Aboard the Delta of Venus