As he walked up the stairs to open the door for the dog, he had an uneasy feeling. He and Edison had been exploring the tunnels for months, and they’d encountered only the occasional maintenance worker down this deep. Tonight, Joe had come across unfamiliar prints. They’d had pronounced ridges, more like hiking boots than the simple straight-line treads of the shoes worn by most transit employees, and they had ranged across dozens of the lower tunnels.
He’d met homeless people underground before, of course, clustered near subway platforms or in the upper tunnels, but no one had ever dared to come as deep as Joe’s house.
Until now.
And Joe didn’t like that at all.
Chapter 2
Ozan Saddiq loved coming to New York because he could visit his brother, Erol, in the home. He couldn’t care for Erol in his own home, because he didn’t have one, and both of their parents were dead, so he paid a fortune to keep him in this expensive facility, and Erol repaid him by being happy. Erol excelled at being happy.
Erol liked Ozan to stay by his bed while he slept, so that was where he sat. The home didn’t allow overnight visitors, so Ozan had to break in at night, after everyone left — a simple task for a man with his talents.
Ozan studied the familiar room, the one constant in his nomadic existence. Erol had his own room, for an extra fee, decorated with manatees and sea turtles. The carpet was aqua blue as were the walls. Even his comforter had an aquatic theme — sea turtles swimming on a blue background with bright yellow fish nibbling on their shells. Ozan watched his brother breathe — almond-shaped eyes closed, yellow-framed glasses folded on the nightstand, body abandoned to a deep sleep Ozan could only imagine.
Chance had given Erol a genetic blueprint with Down syndrome. It could just as easily have been Ozan in that bed.
Ozan tucked the cover under his brother’s soft chin and turned to the demands of his latest client — Dr. Dubois. He wanted the job done immediately. He always did. Ozan had worked for him a few months before — driving a Navy boat laden with cargo he was forbidden to look at to a certain GPS location and then scuttling it. As the ship had sunk beneath the oil-black waves, he’d untied the motorized dinghy and piloted it across miles of open ocean to Florida.
Before he’d sunk the vessel, he’d examined the cargo. Corpses. One hundred and three of them. One hundred had had no visible wounds and might have died of natural causes. Three had had their throats slit with a savagery that spoke of great anger and strength, one of them burned beyond recognition. When the doctor had contacted him again this time, he’d doubled his fee.
He took a teacup from its place on Erol’s nightstand next to a picture of the two of them together at the New York Aquarium. Ozan had brought his own thermos of Turkish tea, brewed strong like their mother used to make. It would be a long night for him.
He inserted the memory stick into its port in his laptop, aware that he would be unable to copy anything from it and the data would erase itself twenty-four hours from the time he viewed it. He could memorize details quickly, another gift he’d received from their parents that Erol hadn’t. It was a useful talent in his business.
Because Ozan’s business was killing.
Like many men, he’d learned to kill in the Army. Like few, he was very good at it. People noticed the care, if not the pleasure, he took doing it, and those people put him in touch with others who would pay for his unique gifts.
He was an aficionado of death. He could be quick and brutal, or slow and elegant. What he was, above all else, was discreet. His murders were viewed as accidental deaths when required, or pinned on others if necessary. He rose to the demands of each occasion.
His prey always underestimated him. A slight man, he didn’t seem like a threat. With black hair cropped short, compact small hands, graceful movements, wide brown eyes — he looked like a waiter.
Erol snorted in his sleep. It sounded like a laugh, and Ozan smiled at him before returning to his reading. For this job he must locate the target, known only as Subject 523, and kill him. That part was straightforward.
A moth fluttered against Erol’s bedside lamp. Ozan’s hand flicked out and caught it. He held the creature against the hot bulb with his forefinger. It waggled its tiny legs as if it could escape him. He held it there, ignoring the pain in his finger until the faint smell of burning hair reached his nostrils, then he let it go. The dead moth fell to the nightstand, and he brushed it to the floor.
He read the next paragraph of the file, twice, surprised by the requirement that he send the doctor a very particular kind of proof that he had completed the job. He wasn’t squeamish, but the strangeness of the request startled even him.
He read on. If the subject possessed classified documents, they must be returned unread. If the subject had shared those documents with others, then additional targets might need to be defined. But he didn’t think on that yet. He would deal with each challenge as it came, examine it thoroughly, then let it go.
A few minutes of research on his laptop dug up a press report that told him Dr. Dubois wasn’t telling the whole truth about his target. Clients rarely told the entire truth, but the flash of disappointment made him frown. It wasn’t that they lied, it was that they thought him naïve enough to believe them. As if he were Erol, open and trusting.
He scanned the article. A homeless man had beaten an unidentified businessman to death with a hammer outside the Grand Central Hyatt a few weeks before. The businessman need not remain unidentified — Ozan recognized his picture in the newspaper. They ran in the same circles, competed for the same jobs, although his fees were reportedly lower than Ozan’s. Regardless, he wouldn’t have been an easy man to surprise or overpower, even by a hammer-wielding crazy man.
Ozan must assume that the murdered man had pursued the same quarry as he, and he’d not only been killed while doing so, he’d also attracted attention, which made Ozan’s job much more delicate. The target had been on the run for an indeterminate amount of time before the murdered colleague had found him. Then the target had killed the man sent to kill him, and more time had gone by.
For this man he should take his time, be even more thorough and careful than usual. The man was dangerous, and Ozan wanted to know all the variables in play.
Instead, he was to rush, as the doctor had made it clear that the subject must be dead within four days. After fumbling about for months, they had given Ozan ninety-six hours.
What could possibly be so urgent?
Chapter 3
Vivian Torres drew in a deep breath. Sure, it smelled like smog, but it was still good. The cold winter sun shone on her long-sleeved running suit as she tightened her shoelaces. She stood at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, watching random tourists amble across its iconic span. They were bundled up in jackets and scarves, breath frosting out in front of them.
She gathered her black hair into a ponytail. She’d just gotten it cut, and it was barely long enough. When she did a few quick stretches, she drew admiring glances from a couple of passing guys. At six feet tall and Army strong, she was used to the attention and ignored them.
“Just a short run, right? Nothing competitive,” asked Dirk. He’d come to run with her. They’d served together in the Army before her discharge, and he knew she was competitive.