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Her last word. But who or what was Sebastian and why would she send Blaine to him or it? Another connection perhaps, a link in a chain being severed one piece at a time.

He could tell that much to Stimson. It was all he knew. The people behind Easton’s murder were not going to leave a trail. All tracks had to be covered. Stimson would run Sebastian through his computers, Chen, too, and perhaps some of those tracks would be revealed. There was the microfiche to consider as well. If they had been able to decipher it at the Gap, Blaine’s job would be that much easier.

The cab reeled over the ice ruts like a roller-coaster car, until it stopped in traffic across from a group of merry carolers and Santa Claus ringing his bell. Santa shoved a copper cup toward passersby who tried to avoid making a donation.

Santa saw the snarl in traffic and moved into the street to take advantage of it. Blaine wondered if he got a percentage of the take for his trouble. He leaned back and squeezed his eyes closed, the cold air streaming through the window, keeping him alert. Horns honked, blared.

A bell disturbed him and forced his eyes open.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”

Santa was coming toward the driver’s side of the cab, aiming for the open window. Blaine slid over to roll it up, but the fake-bearded man got there too fast.

“Merry Christmas! Something for the poor and needy, sir?”

Blaine shrugged. Paying the man would be the quickest way to get rid of him. He reached into his pocket, groping for some change.

Santa thrust his copper cup farther into the car. There was something peculiar about the angle at which he held it …

Blaine’s hand emerged with a pair of quarters.

… and something even more peculiar about the way he held his eyes.

It was the eyes that moved McCracken to action more than anything. Just as Santa started his cup forward, Blaine lurched to the side and watched its liquid contents spray by him, splattering the upholstery. Hot steam began to rise as the vinyl and cloth beneath it melted.

Acid! McCracken realized, the Browning already in his hand.

Santa had his gun out, too, but Blaine sent two shots into him high and hard before he could fire it, staining his lapels the scarlet color of his suit. Santa pitched backward, slammed into another traffic-wedged car, and then slumped to the cement.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” screamed the cabbie, and his hand groped desperately for the door handle.

A number of bystanders chuckled because it looked like Santa had finally gone for one dollar too much. A few even applauded.

There was no mistaking the actions of the carolers, though.

In unison, as if rehearsed, they pulled weapons from inside their overcoats. The first out was a sawed-off shotgun and its wielder fired both barrels as Blaine hugged the taxi’s floor. The pellets turned the car’s frame into a pincushion and the cabbie’s head into splinters of bone. The shock of death forced his foot down, and the cab shot off to the right, colliding with one car, another, then pushing a third with it onto the sidewalk before coming to a stop.

Blaine was tossed violently one way and then the other. His hand grasped for the door handle and yanked it hard. The door sprung open and the movement threw his body onto the sidewalk. The cab itself provided cover.

The carolers fanned out in military fashion, oblivious to the screams and panic of those around them. A series of sprays from the machine pistol of one tore into the cab’s engine block and rocketed flames outward.

McCracken rolled away, exposing himself long enough for a pair of carolers to empty clips at him, chewing cement and spitting glass everywhere. He rolled again and found cover behind a truck.

He crawled under it and locked his Browning on two carolers gliding across the street with heavy rifles in hand before them. Only seven shots remained in the Browning, and his spare clip was still in the overcoat he had left at Madame Rosa’s. He had to make each shot count.

He squeezed off a pair at the two approaching carolers, taking both in the head and dropping them there. Before their bodies had even struck pavement, a hail of fire coughed up fresh tar before him, coming from two directions at once. The impact stunned him briefly, and he was only vaguely conscious of figures darting across the street to better their positions.

Christ, how many carolers had there been? Six? Eight? Ten maybe? … A fucking army!

Blaine could tell they were trying to encircle him. They would keep him pinned where he was with heavy fire while they readied a simultaneous offensive he could not possibly survive. He could hear the distant wail of sirens now, but traffic and icy roads considered, the police could not possibly arrive in time to be of any help to him. He would have to beat the carolers on his own.

How, though?

Blaine pushed himself backward and felt his foot dip into an opened manhole at the rear of the truck. He had a vision of plunging downward to his death and saving the carolers the bother. Wait! Plunge, yes, but not to his death!

McCracken dragged his frame backward so that his legs passed into the manhole, beneath which lay the labyrinth of tunneled storm drains the DPW was currently servicing. A perfect escape route.

But he needed more.

With his legs dangling down the manhole, Blaine waited for the next hail of fire from the approaching carolers before firing two of the Browning’s shells into the truck’s fuel tank. Gas began to spill immediately, some spraying him.

He could feel the carolers’ footsteps almost on top of the truck now. Sirens wailed closer but not close enough. Then he saw feet, lots of them, everywhere around the truck. That was his cue. He pushed the rest of his body into the manhole and plunged into the bowels of New York City.

Upon landing, Blaine yanked a wad of cash from one pant pocket and his lighter from another, flicking it to life. The dried bills caught on contact and he hurled the flaming packet through the manhole opening into the spill of gasoline.

The explosion came almost instantly. McCracken felt the intense heat of the blast surge into him as he ducked and covered his head. He feared for a moment that the flames might follow the heat and consume him. They descended as if shot from a flamethrower, then gave way to coarse black smoke. There were more explosions, smaller secondary ones, mixed with agonized screams from above.

The screams didn’t last long, though. All of the carolers had been too close to the truck to avoid the blast. Most of them were probably in pieces by now.

Blaine rose to his feet, finding that his head just cleared the ceiling of the storm drain. His plunge through the manhole had brought the pain to his back again, but he moved quickly in spite of it. The drain, lit by sporadically placed lamps, was growing dank and putrid by the time he was a hundred yards in.

Finding a spot to climb out proved harder than he had hoped. The many manhole covers he passed were impossible to push off from below. He had to keep walking until he found another DPW crew performing similar service.

It took a good half mile before he came upon one.

“Mayor’s office,” he said, straight-faced, to the men gawking disbelievingly at him as he climbed a ladder back to the street. “Just wanted to make sure you boys weren’t tanking on the job.”

Blaine was no longer concerned about being spotted by potential assailants. He was predominantly conscious instead of his grubby, damp clothes and the attention they might attract. He would have to make arrangements to wash and change somehow, but first he would have to call Stimson. He had plenty to tell him.

He reached an available public phone at the corner of Fifty-sixth and Madison and pulled the Gap director’s private number from his memory. The call went through unhindered by operator assistance or anything as mundane as regular charges. The access code punched prior to the number overruled the need for that.