Shepherd continued up the stairs. Alex aimed her pistol and fired. And fired again and again. Filaments of plaster and wallpaper erupted around him. He twisted and pointed his pistol at her. He was 20 feet away, but she felt close enough to count the grooves in the barrel. He had her dead to rights. The muzzle flash blinded her. Wood splintered an inch from her ear. All this time, she kept firing. Sixteen rounds, she told herself, though she had no idea how many times she’d pulled the trigger. Her hand was sore from squeezing so hard, and her wrist was shaky. She paused for a second-less, even-trained the sights on Shepherd’s chest, then fired three times in succession. Shepherd appeared to hurl himself against the wall, rebounded, and flipped forward over the balustrade. His head struck the floor first, cracking the rotting planking. He didn’t move after that.
The silence was louder than the gunfire.
Alex struggled to a knee and turned her attention to Malloy. “Hang in there, Jimmy,” she said. “I’ll get help.”
Malloy’s eyes beseeched her. His mouth hung open, lips trembling. He was speaking, but the words were incomprehensible. He repeated himself and she understood. “My girls,” he was saying. “…love them.”
“Stay still, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
Alex avoided his eyes. She had to find his carotid artery. Her fingers probed inside the gaping wound, but there was too much blood and half his goddamned neck was no longer there. Malloy’s hand shot up and grasped her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. Slowly the pressure relaxed. The hand fell back to the floor.
“Jimmy,” she said.
Malloy stared lifelessly past her.
Alex stood. A pall of smoke drifted across the room, the cordite so thick it burned her eyes. Mara was dead, too. She already knew that. DiRienzo lay a few feet away. He had a hole in his cheek and the back of his head resembled a savaged pomegranate.
She crossed the room. Randall Shepherd lay on his stomach, his head swallowed by the old, termite-eaten floorboards. She kicked him and he did not respond. She kicked him again, because he was an asshole. Kneeling, she put two fingers to his neck, but she could find no pulse. She could see into the space beneath the house. An olive-drab crate with yellow Cyrillic writing sat inches from her feet. She still had no idea what the writing said. It didn’t matter. There were numbers, too.
She could make out AK-47 just fine.
16
Bobby Astor stepped to the curb and raised a hand in the air. A steel-gray Audi SUV swerved into the right lane and pulled to a halt in front of him. Astor jumped into the back seat. “Good morning, Sully. You will kindly refrain from any mention of my father. I’ve been taking condolences for two hours now and I’m fed up with it.”
“Screw you, too,” said Detective First Grade (retired) John Sullivan, turning in his seat and fixing Astor with his watery blue eyes. He was sixty-seven, stout, and ruddy, very much in fighting trim. Since retiring from the force two years earlier, he’d worked as Astor’s official chauffeur and unofficial bodyguard. “My condolences on the passing of your father.”
“Condolences accepted,” said Astor. “Get me to midtown.”
Sullivan guided the car into traffic. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what a shitty day. First your dad and then this thing out on Long Island.”
“What thing is that?” Astor asked, only half interested. He freed the agenda from his back and set it on his lap, eager to study his father’s business dealings for a clue as to what Palantir might mean.
“In Inwood, near JFK. Three FBI agents were killed in some kind of operation. It’s all over the news.”
Astor looked up from the agenda. “Did they give any names?”
Sullivan’s blue eyes peered at him in the rearview. “Not yet. You know-have to contact the relatives first. Why?”
“Alex was on a raid last night.”
“Long Island?”
“I think so.” Astor speed-dialed his ex. He tapped his foot, waiting for her to answer.
“You’re an hour late,” said Alex when she picked up. “And yes, I’m all right.”
Astor was more relieved than he cared to admit at hearing her voice. “Was it Jimmy?”
“He, Jason Mara, and Terry DiRienzo.”
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
“Yeah, well.”
“What happened?”
“You know I can’t discuss it. Listen, I’m busy right now. We can talk later.”
Astor hung up, shaken, feeling somehow as if he were the one who had dodged a bullet.
“She okay?” asked Sullivan.
“Same as ever. Her partner was killed. Jim Malloy. Good guy.”
“God bless,” said Sullivan.
“Yeah. God bless,” said Astor. “What the hell was she doing out there?”
Sullivan didn’t answer. There was a time when he’d worked with Alex. The two didn’t get along. He called her a maverick and thought she was too keen on taking risks, too eager to put herself and her team into the line of fire. Astor had no grounds to argue with him. Alex was Alex. She knew only one direction: forward. And always at top speed. Astor was the same. He often thought it was their similarities that had drawn them together, each seeing his or her own best traits in the other. It had made for a torrid romance. But narcissism, in whatever form, wasn’t a good recipe for a long-term relationship.
Astor’s phone buzzed. He checked the number. “What is it, Marv?”
Shank’s voice rattled the car’s speakers. “We got problems. Some of our guys called. They saw what happened earlier. They’re nervous about the position.”
By “guys,” Shank meant the banks that had lent Astor the money to finance his bet on the yuan. Astor checked the monitor built into the rear seat. The yuan was holding steady at 6.30. “We’re good. What are they complaining about?”
“Afraid it might happen again. They’re talking about upping our margin deposit.”
“They can screw themselves. A deal’s a deal.”
“Tell that to our lenders. If you’ve got a minute, you might want to stop by and boost their spirits.”
Astor knew this was an order, not a request. “Who?”
“Brad Zarek.”
Zarek was a senior VP who ran the prime direct brokerage department at Standard Financial. Not Astor’s favorite guy. “How much are we into them?”
“Four hundred million.”
Four hundred million was a substantial sum. Zarek had every right to be calling. “Listen, Marv, any other day I’d be there in a heartbeat. I’ve got something else going.”
“This isn’t any other day. If Standard Financial sneezes, all the other guys will get the flu.”
“Yeah, all right. Call Zarek and tell him I’ll be over. Listen, I gotta go.”
“Head over there now. The sooner we nip this in the bud, the better. You coming back in, after?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, my ass. It’s not just the banks that are calling. I’m fielding calls left, right, and center from our clients. People are scared. They don’t want to talk to a schmuck like me. They want the schmuck whose name is on the fund.”
“That would be me.”
“That would be you, schmuck.”
“Yeah, okay…I’ll see what I can do.”
And the hits keep coming, thought Astor. He leaned forward and told Sullivan to take him to Standard Financial’s headquarters at 45th and Sixth. Astor patted his driver on the shoulder. “Hey, Sully, sorry I barked at you like that earlier.”
“Don’t sweat it, chief. I’ve gotten worse.”
John Sullivan had first pinned on a badge in 1966 at the age of twenty. He’d seen all the hot spots: narcotics, vice, homicide. Somewhere in there he’d been shot. Word was he’d pulled the bullet out himself and chased down the bad guy. Astor met him when Sullivan was working with Alex on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, better known as the JTTF, the force within a force run together with the FBI and a multitude of smaller agencies.