The Execution

Fisk froze there for a moment. Then he grabbed the knob and pulled the door shut again.

Fisk backed away from the door. He looked down the wide room at the other doors.

Best to leave them locked in for now.

He quickly checked his silenced phone. No reception down here.

He put his phone away and thumbed off the light, picking his way across the room in darkness. The odor here was foul, the air uncirculated. He neared the end of the room and thought he could make out a flight of stairs headed up. He turned on his SureFire again . . . but the image he saw before him burned itself onto his retina, even after he shut off his flashlight again.

There, against the wall and on the floor, the amount of dried, brown blood was astonishing.

Slung against the paneled wall, splashed against the concrete floor.

Fisk held his breath in an attempt not to breathe in the fumes. He thumbed on the light again.

He saw the divots in the floor, amid all the smeared blood. He swung his light to the corner, where stood a tool resembling a post-hole digger, its blade crusted brown.

The scene was even grimmer the second time he looked at it. Grim and infinitely sad.

This was where the Rockaway thirteen had been decapitated and otherwise maimed.

CHAPTER 67

Chuparosa checked the exterior surveillance cameras, front and back. There was nobody outside the building, no vehicles except those parked along the curb, nothing moving. No police cars, no vans.

If it was a cop, he had come alone. Which meant he was crazy or stupid.

If it was not a cop, who could it be? The unluckiest thief in the history of the world? Or another, unexpected threat?

Chuparosa buckled on his holster containing the Glock 21. He reached for the M4 carbine he had stolen from a drug dealer three weeks before.

He decided he wanted to keep eyes and ears on Calibri, and started down the stairs after him. Tomás Calibri had been shot twice fighting communist guerrillas during his stint in the Mexican military, where he was awarded the Condecoración al Valor Heroico and the Cruz de Guerra. Three years later he offered his mercenary services to the Zetas. He was a man of questionable intelligence, in Chuparosa’s opinion, as well as being a little insane—but he was a good man in a fight.

Calibri was starting toward the door to the basement. As Chuparosa came off the bottom step, the elevator from the basement groaned to life, the thick cable starting to pull the car upward.

Chuparosa motioned to Calibri to take up a position opposite him by the elevator door. Calibri could cover the elevator while Chuparosa watched the basement door, and they could each shoot without concern for hitting each other.

The elevator hummed and whined and shuddered as it moved up toward them.

Whoever this strange visitor was, they had him.

CHAPTER 68

Chuparosa, thought Fisk, quickly surveying the room by flashlight. He spotted a freight elevator gaping open, a rectangular slab of darkness in the wall. He thought to try the stairs first—quieter—but he had already a

The sound of the freight elevator would certainly put whoever was upstairs on alert, but it was time to take a chance. He was alone in an unfamiliar building. The advantage was theirs.

The Hummingbird might be up there.

The freight elevator was an ancient thing. It operated with a worn, old-fashioned brass handle that you pushed one direction or the other. Right was up, left was down. A spring forced it back to the off position as soon as you let go of it.

If it even worked.

There were no automatic doors, no safety features, just a telescoping grating that you pulled across the face of the elevator. Or not. It operated either way.

Back in the good old days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, before city inspectors and class action lawsuits, if you didn’t pay attention and you hung your foot out of an elevator, it was severed at the ankle. And it was your own damn fault.

So Fisk did not have to close the grating or the door to get the elevator to move. Instead he simply pushed the brass handle to the right. The elevator sighed deeply, then jerked to life, rising slowly.

He knew he would only have a moment to find out whether he could pull off the trick he was considering. He risked a flash with his SureFire as the base of the elevator rose, and he crouched and surveyed the undercarriage to see if there was anything there he could grip and hold on to. As it moved upward, he saw that the base consisted of a network of iron struts. The bottom cable was straightening slowly. Fisk switched off his flashlight and moved quickly.

He grasped one of the struts with his left hand and dangled there, the shotgun in his right. He turned so that he was facing in the direction of the door as the car rose.

He realized he would again only have a few moments to evaluate his situation once he reached the first floor. If he was spotted, he would have to let go and fall back into the darkness—and probably break both ankles. The pit in which the elevator rested contained some kind of base or spring assembly to cushion the elevator, so there was an excellent chance he would fall on something very hard—maybe slicing his flesh or even impaling himself.

So dropping free of the elevator was the least attractive option.

His hand started to burn. The strut was hard-edged and thin, cutting into the base of all four fingers. The elevator shook, thumped, paused, then continued onward. Each movement threatened to break his grip. Fisk was concerned that if he had to hang there too long, the sharp edges would cut right through.

The top of the elevator was rising into view on the first floor.

A voice, whispered, Spanish: “Empty. A diversion.”

“The stairs then.” The second voice was softer, dubious.

Fisk hoisted the pistol grip of his shotgun up into firing position. It was a pump gun, which meant he needed both hands to cycle it. Since he was hanging with one hand, Fisk had only one shot. Then it was either fall back into the dark uncertainty, leap onto the first floor and take the fight to the voices, or hang on and ride up to the top floor.

As the base of the elevator cleared the lip of the first floor, Fisk could see again. Two pairs of feet, shiny black shoes, one near, one farther down the hallway. Toes facing away from him.

Time crawled as the gap beneath the elevator and the floor grew larger and larger. Fisk only had one shot. He had to be sure.

Just then the near set of feet jogged down to join the other at the end of the hall. A bolt was thrown and they started through a door.

Before they disappeared, he saw a submachine gun in the second one’s hands.

Fisk heard, under the groaning of the elevator mechanism, footsteps echoing on the metal stairs.

They were going down just as he was coming up.

Slowly the first floor scrolled fully into Fisk’s vision. His waist passed the floor, then his thighs, then his knees.

Enough finally to swing out and jump. He hit the ground with a thump—no way to land softly—and paused to shake the fire out of his left hand and forearm. Another second or two and his grip would have failed. It had been that close.

He was one man with a shotgun against two men with submachine guns. The smart play was to retreat, to get out of the building and wait for support.

Then he remembered the girls trapped down in the basement.

And the bulkhead door, open to freedom.

As he was starting down the hall to the open door, a figure suddenly appeared in it. Dressed in white and black like a waiter, he also had a large paunch. He raised the muzzle of an MP5 and unleashed a short, disciplined burst of submachine gun fire.