Vigilante (15 page)

A
gnes Ellerbee was sitting at her desk, scanning a collection of old Special Forces records, hoping she might come across a candidate whose build and abilities might line up with her mysterious quarry, when her phone vibrated inside her purse.

No one else in the office heard it; they were too busy following the TV reports about last night’s incendiary raid on a New York crime boss by the OCI. Lynn Tremaine stood in the center of the office and barked out orders about what angles of the story to cover and who would be covering it. Agnes’s name was never called.

She didn’t mind. The number on her ringing phone was unknown, but being a reporter, she couldn’t afford not to answer it. You never knew when an anonymous tip might come in or a source might be trying to reach out to the media. Granted, the chances of someone like that calling her, of all people, were slim, when there were much more famous and respected reporters out there to choose from.

But she could dream.

“Ellerbee,” she said into the receiver.

“It’s Tommy,” said the caller in a terse, urgent tone. It took a few seconds for her to put it together. “You need to get down here.”

The hacker!

She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper so that none of her colleagues in the office could hear. “Do you have it? Did you get his face? Do you know what he looks like?”

“There wasn’t enough to go on to put his whole face together,” Tommy replied. “But I have something you’re going to want to see.”

Agnes dropped the phone into her carryall and darted for the exit.

———

Out of breath, Agnes raced into the bar and didn’t bother stopping to see what the reaction to her presence was this time. She raced to the tiny back room that Tommy Serra called home and banged on the door.

“Who is it?” Tommy called out.

“It’s the Easter bunny,” Agnes replied, impatient and gulping deep lungfuls of air.

Tommy flung the door open and she stepped quickly inside.

Without a word, he returned to his desk chair and entered a series of keystrokes. The center screen on his panel went black and then the wireframe shape of a human head appeared there, rotating slowly. But it was just an outline. It had no skin or features, nothing to identify it.

With a few more keystrokes, Tommy input the sum total of his work on the photos Agnes had given him, and the bottommost portion of the face was filled in with skin textures that had been lifted from the photos and wrapped around the 3-D model. It wasn’t much—just the bottom inch or so of the man’s face and the top of his neck. His chin was almost completely filled in, but there were tiny blank spots here and there where Tommy hadn’t found a photograph to fill it in.

“That’s all you could get?” Agnes asked, unable to hide her disappointment.

“From the pics, yeah,” said Tommy. “But then I applied this algorithm I’ve been working on that extrapolates the most probable data for the empty spaces and fills them in with what they look like. And . . . there.” Tommy tapped a single key and suddenly the empty spaces were filled in on the wireframe model, along with another inch or so of skin above the part that was already there.

Agnes leaned in. Now she was intrigued. “What is that?” she asked, pointing at something on the face.

Tommy shook his head. “Can’t be sure . . . But to me it looks like a scar. And this is one over here, too,” he added, pointing to a second scar. Both of them extended up into the parts of the face that weren’t filled in, but what they could see definitely looked like mangled skin that had been damaged beyond repair, with some hasty stitching to sew up the flesh wounds.

Agnes took in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. “He’s . . . disfigured.”

Her mind spun with thoughts, mostly about how this drastically reduced the number of potential candidates. Because how many people could there be in the world who had faces mangled so badly? A few hundred? A few thousand? Even at that, she could further narrow down the list by including only those who were highly trained at hand-to-hand combat. Maybe she could even find someone who was equally skilled and could tell her which martial arts disciplines The Hand used. . . .

Her thoughts returned to the present when she saw that Tommy was staring at her.

“Can you get me a—”

“—a copy?” he finished for her, holding up a tiny data card. “Includes both versions.”

She accepted the item and then got out her wallet to give the young man any amount of money he wanted. However much it would cost her—even if she had to take out a second mortgage—she didn’t care. Tommy Serra had been worth every penny.

Y
uri Vasko’s dead hand rested on his desk, and his eyes fell on it and would not move.

Marko stood close, as ever, prepared to obey his master’s every command, but more interested in their profits than all other concerns. He might as well have been incorporeal as far as Vasko was concerned. Vasko cared no more about money at this moment than he did any of the other random thoughts that came to mind.

The hour was late, the sun nearing the bottom of the big picture window behind him, causing his own frame to cast a long shadow over his desk and the floor beyond. Any other day, he would be preparing to head home right now.

Today, there was no home. No one was waiting to welcome him, to shower him with daughterly affection in that special manner that Olena possessed. No beloved wife to talk to, dine with, take long walks with, or make love to. They were gone. He’d carried them both from the fire himself, refusing the police their autopsy examination. Their bodies had been so badly burned in the fire, he’d had them both secretly cremated this afternoon.

Turned to nothing but ash.

How could they be dead?

Without them, what did he have left? What was his purpose?

Was it his business? He was good at what he did but he would gladly trade it all to hold his wife and daughter again. They were his world, and the world was hollow without them. A lonely, empty place that was offensive and alien.

How Vasko wished that he could have died with them!

No. He had to put such thoughts aside. They would not serve him.

Marko was babbling something about believing one or more of his rivals to be responsible for this tragedy. Vasko didn’t hear him.

He had to decide what to do now. Yes, that was important. It would make Marko happy to see him get back to work. But why did he care about making Marko happy? The man was a sycophant who secretly siphoned a fraction of Vasko’s income for himself. Vasko had known for years, but Marko was so good at keeping the books—and keeping the company’s nose clean—that he would be impossible to replace. Besides, with their shared heritage, Marko was the closest thing he had to a friend in this world.

The man who stole from him was his only real friend. What a sad commentary on his life this was. But it was what it was: his life.

Vasko pounced; rocketing to his feet, he upturned his massive walnut desk with an animal’s furious roar. He looked up at the ceiling and howled a scream that was like nothing that had ever escaped from his throat before. Its volume and rage surprised even him.

“Yuri!” said Marko.

“Shut up,” Vasko cut him off, plopping back down in his seat again, his manner suddenly calm. “I’m thinking.”

My life.

That was what triggered the outburst. Those two words. He knew Marko was looking at him in fear, the way one looks at a madman. But he didn’t care. The very notion of thinking any longer about his life as if it were something normal, something everyday, was insulting on a primal level. It was an affront to his wife and daughter—two glorious, beautiful women who’d lost their lives to an end that was not of their own making.

His life was not his life. Not anymore. Without the ones he loved, it no longer made sense to him. There was nowhere for him to go should he leave this office. This place was all he had left. What would the world have him do now, if he was no longer truly alive?

He cared nothing for his business. Not now. It was a means to an end, a way of providing the ones he loved with contentment, safety, and peace. Now it may as well have been as dead as the lifeless fingers on his ruined hand. As dead as . . .

No!

He burst from his chair, ready to howl once more, but stopped. His thoughts had been circling one lone notion all day, but he kept pushing it aside, kept turning back to the grief of losing his dearest ones.

No more. There was another emotion clawing to the surface, one far more powerful than sorrow, and he would take refuge inside it.

Vasko turned, stepped up to the window.

“I know you’re out there,” he said softly. He stretched his arms open wide, and when next he spoke, his voice carried a hollow-throated thunder. “I know you want me! So come on, then! Let’s have it!”

This city worshiped The Hand. Even the media loved him. They called him “The Hand of God,” “The Hand of Life.” The city’s “champion” and “rescuer.” The man had saved countless lives. But he didn’t save Lilya and Olena. For all Vasko knew, he was their murderer. He knew the OCI had raided his home. This was something he’d learned soon after the slaughter. And he knew he had made things easy on them by removing his loved ones’ bodies after the attack; had their bodies been found there by the police, the OCI would have been skewered by the press. But as it was, the bodies of more than a dozen of his men had been found at the scene. That would have to do. The OCI would get their due in time.

For now, he was more interested in another. When Vasko had found his home on fire, the OCI was gone. But
he
was there, standing over his daughter’s body holding a gun—a gun which he’d this morning matched to the bullet that killed Olena.

The Hand had never murdered before—at least, that anyone knew of. Why had the man come after him and his family? There was only one reason that made sense: Yuri was a warning to every other crime boss on his to-do list.
Get out of this business, or your loved ones pay the price.

Vasko looked down at his own black sickly hand. It was a thing of death.

The Hand of Life.

The hand of death.

Plans took shape in his mind before he’d consciously decided to formulate them. This business of his, this company—it had always been a means to an end. If that end was gone, if he no longer had any life within him, then he would see the business become a means to a new end.

Vasko took a step closer to the window, so close he saw his breath condense on the glass, and he scanned the city. That man was out there right now, not dead as he’d initially hoped from that gunshot to the head, but recovering from his encounter with Vasko. Or maybe he was back on his feet already, somewhere on the streets or the rooftops, saving someone’s life or stopping a robbery or tracking down some heinous criminal.

Vasko’s plans would take time to see to fruition. Meticulous, elaborate plotting would be required to countermove against the intricate plans of the The Hand, as he had told Marko not that long ago. It was all the better this way; it would keep Vasko going, giving him the purpose he needed.

His new trade was the business of hate.

I
t was after nine in the evening as Nolan ran along the tracks of the F line, under southeast Brooklyn. The F train had just passed by as he pressed himself up against the stone wall, and he took off running after it, grappler in hand.

A bomb threat had been called in at Coney Island amusement park just under an hour ago. The NYPD had done a once-over of the premises after ordering a full evacuation of the park and found nothing. But Branford intercepted a Hazmat call from the Bureau office in New York that had picked up a spike in radiation somewhere on Coney Island.

And anything big enough to register a radiation spike was big enough to affect the entire city, and beyond. The Hazmat Unit was still half an hour out, and the radiation levels were rising. All three of his friends had protested, but Nolan argued that New York might not have that much time left. So he went.

Arjay had warned him against firing the grappler to grab onto objects in motion. If the vehicle was going fast enough and he managed to hold onto the grappler, the resulting action could rip his arms off. Arjay had said this without a trace of humor, so Nolan knew it must be true, even though the scenario brought to mind cartoonish images. So he was running at a dead sprint, speeding along at his fastest possible rate, pushed a bit further by his marvelous shock-absorbing boots. Still, the train was far ahead and getting farther by the second.

Not daring to stop running, he aimed the grappler and fired. He was already retracting it before he heard the loud metal clap that signaled contact. He jumped from the ground as high as he could, to avoid being dragged, but landed back on the ground anyway. Landing on his feet, he immediately leapt into the air again, and this time the grappler pulled him all the way to the rear of the subway car, where he saw that it had punctured straight through the metal wall.

He rode the back of the train for five minutes, standing on the tiny platform there, until it finally came to rest a few miles out from the Coney Island stop. No trains were allowed to get any closer to the area affected by the bomb threat. A quick grapple up a manhole pipe leading to the surface, and he was on the streets under the cover of night. He would have to hoof it the rest of the way.

He’d never been there before, though he recalled wanting to come at some point in his childhood. Every surface, every stretch of asphalt, was steeped in a history that one could smell and touch. The place was a relic of a forgotten era of American youth and optimism.

Nolan ran through the empty streets, scanning all directions with his enhanced vision. Police barricades blocked the major thoroughfares, but they were easy enough to avoid since the officers on the scene had their hands full with straggling pedestrians who refused to leave.

“
Take Twelfth Street, head for the beach.
” Branford’s voice came over the radio so tense it sounded like the old man was out of breath.

Nolan followed his instructions and found himself at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. “Can you narrow it down for me?” he asked between shallow breaths.

“
It’s hard to say,
” replied Branford. “
On the Hazmat map
 . . .
I think it’s somewhere between the big wheel and the Cyclone—the roller coaster.
”

You
“
think
”
?
Nolan wanted to ask, but bit his tongue.

Okay, okay, Nolan. Think. Calm down and think.

The big wheel was to his immediate left, towering over the horizon. A chain-link fence stood in his way, but it was easy to scale. Up and over and a quick dash, and he was at the foot of the enormous Ferris wheel. The historic white wooden roller coaster called the Cyclone stood proudly not far off to the east. A number of attractions were situated in between, including a merry-go-round, a Tilt-a-Whirl, a few smaller kiddie coasters, and a vertical lift ride that gave a bird’s-eye view of the park from way up in the sky. There were enough vendors and nooks and crannies in between all that to require hours of searching. All of it had been abandoned, of course, due to the evacuation. None of the rides or attractions were on, nor were any of the park’s lights.

“Does Arjay have anything in his bag of tricks that might help me find this thing?” he asked with the sudden thought.

There was a pause before Branford answered, “
He says the X-ray option on your specs will detect forms of radiation, but that this could lead you astray, since lots of ordinary things give off radiation. He also says the radiation source won’t be very bright until you’re right on top of it.
”

“I’ll take it,” said Nolan. Anything to narrow it down.

He tapped the X-ray option on the side of his glasses. The world went black-and-white, and he saw a number of items in his immediate vicinity that shone brighter than the rest. The first turned out to be a group of ceramic toilets in a public restroom, the second a big bunch of bananas inside a vending shack.

The third bright X-ray light led him to a pickup truck parked on West Tenth Street, just beside the Cyclone.

“
Careful,
” said Branford in his ear.

“This is it,” he said, sprinting for the truck. “I know it.”

The glasses led him to the floorboard of the truck, which he could only reach after breaking out a side window. There he found a shoebox that glowed brighter than anything he’d seen yet. Cautiously, he opened the top and found himself staring into the sun.

He ripped off the glasses and stared at the small black device inside the box. It was a pipe of some kind, but it was warm to the touch.

“
What is it?
” Branford asked.

“Some kind of dirty bomb, I think,” he replied. “But I don’t see a timer.”

“
Then it has to be on a remote,
” Branford said, his terse words coming out in a rush.

“I remember reading somewhere that bombers that use remote triggers usually station themselves close enough to see the detonation with their own eyes.”

“
Where did you read that?
” asked Branford.

“Eh, I’m lying. Saw it in a movie.”

He picked up his glasses and switched to the thermal camera. Climbing atop the truck’s cab, he spun in place and scanned the area. Nothing. He removed the glasses again and pocketed them.

“General, what do I do with this thing?” he asked, climbing down from the truck. “I don’t think I can disarm it. For all we know, it could be rigged to blow if I tamper with it.”

“
Hand it over to the police?
” Branford suggested. “
Alice’s husband works in a Clinton precinct; unlikely that he’d have the Brooklyn cops on his side. Or you could leave it for the Hazmat team. They should be able to find it as fast as you did.
”

Nolan was about to reply when the words caught in his throat.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye. It was fast and faint, but he saw a reflected light glimmer high overhead in the circular car that went up and down the vertical lift tower.

The tower that was extended halfway to the top.

After the park had been evacuated and closed.

If someone was inside that thing keeping an eye on the bomb, they already knew that Nolan had found it. The bomber’s finger was probably on the trigger right now, about to press it.

There was no time. He whipped out the grappler, took aim at the tower, and fired. In less than a second, he was zipping through the air, and just as he reached the tower car, he went through the glass side, steel fist first, following through the motion to land on the narrow floor inside and roll to his feet.

A teenage boy was squatting on the floor, less than three feet from where he’d landed. The boy was holding a homemade device with an antenna, but Nolan’s sudden entrance seemed to have startled him so badly that he passed out.

Moments later, Nolan was applying a wrap of chain-link fence around the unconscious boy, latching him to the tower’s base. The bomb and its detonator, sitting on the ground not far from the tower, were already waiting for Hazmat to arrive.

He had just locked the fence together when he sprang to his feet.

What was that?

He spun in place, his eyebrows knit together as he scanned his surroundings. He hadn’t heard or seen anything. Maybe it was some cumulative effect of his diverse training, or a forgotten instinct he didn’t even have a name for.

But he could have sworn . . .

“General, pull up a live satellite view of the area,” he said.

He heard the tapping of computer keys in his earpiece. “
What am I looking for?
”

Nolan’s eyes danced across the landscape, his skin tingling. “I don’t know. Probably nothing.”

A moment passed, and still Nolan found himself alert and ready to pounce, like a guard dog that smelled something funny.

“
I’m not seeing any movement,
” Branford said. “
Nothing looks out of place.
”

The Ferris wheel.

He turned and looked up at the massive, ancient park ride. But there was nothing. Everything was perfectly still.

Scowling, he forced himself to relax. “Forget it,” he said. “I’m heading home.”