If the trackers had done their homework, they'd expect to see him running back down the hill. They'd figure he'd stay on North Broadway, straight ahead for three miles north, then come back to Roberts Avenue. Six miles in under fifty minutes. But that wasn't going to happen today. He blew warm breath into his fist, then reached around, pretending to scratch the small of his back. His knuckles brushed the Sig Sauer P228, which rested snugly in the pocket of the elastic bellyband holster.

The number 2 bus, spewing gray smoke, crawled up steep, curving North Broadway, making its return trip from this outpost of aging Yonkers Irishmen. Eddie waited until it passed; then he crossed to the other side of the street to run against traffic. He always ran on the blacktopped road rather than on the concrete sidewalk. Concrete guaranteed knee problems. He began running slowly, giving his body a chance to heat up. The movement felt good, crisp air filling his lungs, his blood flowing. Even in his heavy-drinking days, Eddie had stayed in great shape, working out at least three days a week in the homemade gym below his brother's bar. He could still do sit-ups and push-ups until he got bored.

Eddie coasted down North Broadway, his feet slapping softly on the blacktop. He didn't spot the BMW until he was almost through the intersection. It was halfway down Roberts Avenue, partially hidden by a parked delivery truck. Eddie made a swooping turn through moving traffic, picking up speed as horns blared. His adrenaline kicked in as he hit the corner of Roberts in a full sprint. God help me, he thought, I love a brawl.

A coffee cup flew out of the driver's-side window of the BMW, its contents splashing onto the street. Eddie came on hard, thirty yards back. The driver made a screeching U-turn. Eddie focused on the rear license plates, a New York registration, but he couldn't make out the number. The car lurched forward, its transmission grinding. He was within twenty yards when the engine roared and the driver jumped the light at Palisade Avenue. Sparks flew as the back end bottomed out on the base of the hill when the driver floored it, and the car ate the hill alive, ascending Roberts Avenue as if it had been launched into space. A clean, incredibly quick getaway. Eddie slowed. Nothing he could do without the plate number. Besides, in less than a minute, it would be on the Saw Mill River Parkway.

Then the driver fooled him.

Four blocks ahead, at the crest of the hill, the BMW turned into Bellevue Avenue, Eddie's narrow and curvy little street. It was a move that could only slow down their escape. A move that didn't make sense. Purely stupid. A seasoned wheelman should know the escape route cold and never get trapped on clunky little back roads.

Then a rush of bile flooded the back of Eddie's throat as he realized that it was way too stupid. The driver had turned down the street for a reason. Someone needed to be warned or picked up. Another player was in the game. The BMW wasn't a tail-it was a lookout.

Focusing only on the next few steps ahead, Eddie pumped his legs in short, quick strides. It has to be cops, he thought. Probably feds, the bastards. Best guess was that they were going back to pick up some technician who was attaching a tracking device to his Olds. Standard FBI operating procedure-they used all the toys in the box. The BMW had merely been keeping tabs on him until the tech man had the thing installed. Now they were hustling back to pick him up. They wanted Eddie to lead them to the Russians, to Anatoly Lukin, and they knew they couldn't tail him without electronic help. He put his head down and leaned into the hill.

Eddie's mind clicked through all the possibilities. It wasn't a burglar; burglars wouldn't go to all this trouble. Maybe the tech man was planting a bug in his house. They'd need to break in for that. Most likely, they'd put it in the kitchen, the room with the most conversations. No reason even to look in the bedroom. Kate would sleep through it all. He dug deeper, his lungs burning. He knew damn well she wouldn't sleep through it. A deep, racking wheeze escaped his chest.

Let it be cops, he prayed. Even feds; feds would be fine. They played by the rules. They weren't the worst. He knew the worst. Knew them all too well. The men who populated the dark side of his past were the night- mare scenario. They didn't acknowledge anyone's rules, and they didn't like surprises. Finding his daughter would be a huge surprise.

His pulse thumped in the back of his neck as he reached the crest of the hill. The old neighborhood was rilled with huge trees and overgrown hedges. Eddie wouldn't be able to see his own house until he was standing directly in front of it. As he ran toward his house, he heard tires squealing. He pulled his gun from the belly-band holster as the black BMW flew out of his driveway and bounced over the curb. The driver started left, then swerved wide right, away from Eddie. This time, he was close enough to read the plate number. He said it aloud, his voice a hoarse rattle. The car fishtailed on the sharp curve and slid around the corner.

Eddie kept running, no longer aware of pain. His voice became a singsong chant as he repeated the number on the license plate over and over, memorizing a set of digits he knew were the most important numbers of his life. He ran until the car was out of sight and he could no longer see the struggle in the backseat. Until all he could think about was the green flannel shirt his only daughter was wearing, and how it set off her wild red hair, as once did the green of her grammar school tartan.

Chapter 2

Monday

9:20 A.M.

An hour and a half had passed since Eddie Dunne heard his daughter scream his name from the backseat of the BMW. Not a hint of her since then. Eddie paced the faded tiles of his kitchen floor in the same clothes he'd worn all morning. Detective Barbara Panko of the Yonkers Police Department sat at the table. She'd traced the BMW's registration to an upscale address in Scarsdale. A team of YPD detectives was en route.

"Why don't you jump in the shower," Detective Panko said. "Get some fresh clothes on. I'll hold down the fort."

"Soon as we hear from Scarsdale," Eddie said.

Detective Panko, whom Eddie had called Babsie all her life, flipped through a box filled with Dunne family pictures, looking for a current photo of Kate. It was for the case file. Babsie, from one of the old families of the tight blue-collar community, already knew what Kate looked like.

"When I was a kid," she said, "I wanted red hair in the worst way. Even dyed it once. Remember that disaster? Drove my poor parents crazy."

"You were one hell of an Irish step dancer even without it."

"Yeah, and the only Polack in Mrs. McCrudden's class. God, I hated those short pleated skirts. They made my legs look like tree trunks."

Eddie had grown up with the Pankos. He'd been in their cramped childhood apartment above Panko's Butcher Shop hundreds of times. He'd fought two of her older brothers when the Yonkers CYO still held Wednesday-night smokers. They both were now retired from the Yonkers PD. Babsie, every bit a tough Panko offspring, had spent ten seasons as the star pitcher for the Yonkers PD in the city's fast-pitch softball league. Six months away from retirement, she now watched from the bleachers.

"Your mom doing okay?" Babsie asked, trying to make small talk to keep Eddie calm. She'd given up asking him to sit down. "She's glad she went back to Ireland and all?"

"I guess. Never hear any different."

Uniformed officers from the YPD had scoured the area of Palisade and Roberts, unable to find the coffee cup thrown from the window of the BMW. In Eddie's living room, a tech man installed a tape recorder; the phone trap was already set. Except for Kate's nurse buddies, the phone had been silent. Eddie glanced up at the kitchen clock, which seemed to be standing as still as the world around him. The clock had a farm-scene background-three white chickens in front of a rusted plow. His late wife, Eileen, had collected farm scenes that reminded her of her birthplace in County Kerry. If she were alive, Eileen would be blaming him for this, cursing him, as only the deeply religious can. He looked again at the clock. It occurred to him that little gets accomplished in the time it takes a clock's hands to sweep across three white chickens.