“It was a brand-new tattoo,” said Fisk, straightening. “He got this hummingbird right before he was killed.”

“It is a cartel signature, usually a ‘Z’ for Zetas, a ‘13’ for MS-13, something like that. The whole point of this . . . display . . . this work . . . whatever you want to call it, is to show us this tattoo. To frame it, to underline it.”

Kiser said, “And this bird means something to you.”

“Something,” said Fisk, going back to the presumed tattoo artist. He rolled him back onto his stomach, hairy buttocks in the air. “Look at this.”

Fisk pointed at his right shoulder. It was a tattoo of an attractive woman, the image rendered in impressive detail.

Fisk said, “He couldn’t have done this one himself.”

“No,” Garza said. “Most likely he did the drawing and had a colleague paint by numbers.”

Fisk snapped off his gloves and took out his phone. He snapped a picture of the tat.

“You don’t need to do that,” Kiser said. “I told you, forensics got photos of all the tats already.”

Fisk just nodded, returning his phone to his pocket.

Garza said, “I need to run those images through our database back in Mexico City.”

Kiser looked at Fisk. “What say you?”

Fisk said, “I don’t see any need for you to get any special authorization. This is about solving crime, right?”

“Well,” said Kiser, “actually it’s more about keeping my job. Kidding. Anything that puts me one step closer to understanding what I’m looking at is good. Can we go now?”

They stepped out of the morgue proper, into the outer offices. Fisk stopped Kiser. “As soon as we start pulling this together, you’ll know as much as we do. Meantime, not a word of this to anybody who doesn’t need to know, okay?”

“Sure. You got it.”

“The president of Mexico is in town to sign a major antinarcoterrorism accord. Today we find we have the top Zeta hitter—former top Zeta hitter—in town. I’m not going to draw any straight lines for you because I don’t know yet if they’re there to be drawn. But you can see where this is going, right?”

“Holy shit,” said Kiser.

CHAPTER 33

While Garza was pushing through the photos of the tattooed corpses to her people in Mexico City, Fisk e-mailed his photograph of the woman’s face to Intel.

His phone rang almost right away. It was Nicole. “What is this now?”

Fisk explained the photograph’s source. “It’s so photorealistic, I think you need to run it through the facial recognition program.”

“Well, it’s more detailed than a criminal sketch, but—”

“It’s worth a try. It’s never been a one hundred percent unique metric, but it can narrow down the pool of potentials. Bounce it through FBI and State. State has something like seventy-five million faces in their system, FBI not nearly as many. Every single American who has walked through a major airport in the past decade is in the database, for starters. They’ve got this new next-generation software that creates a three-D projection from an image. Maybe we get lucky.”

Nicole said, “If I can get tagged in all my friends’ photographs on Facebook, why can’t this work, too?”

Fisk said, “Exactly.”

CHAPTER 34

Garza came back with some information on the hooker, including a picture on her phone.

“Silvia Volpi. Missing since last February.” Garza looked up from her phone. “Trafficked up north.”

“Forced prostitution,” said Fisk. “She’s going to be tough to find.”

Fisk had her send him the photo, which he then submitted to Nicole at Intel.

Fisk said, “I think you should have your president moved from the Four Seasons.”

“Already have,” said Garza. “Plans are being made now. The problem is finding a suitable location last minute.”

“Tough week for hotels,” said Fisk.

Garza said, “We are doing it very quietly, while maintaining our reservation at the Four Seasons. We are running a program to make it seem as though President Vargas is still there, and swapping out agents on bogus errands in hopes they will be tailed. Maybe we can trap someone.”

Fisk nodded his approval. “Good one.” Fisk received the information on Silvia Volpi. The photograph was apparently from her quinceañera, the celebration of her fifteenth birthday. She was wearing a pink, promlike dress with a matching bouquet of pink roses, the photograph taken professionally. Fisk shook his head as he forwarded it along.

CHAPTER 35

Fisk’s greeting upon his second visit to the Secret Service’s New York field office in two days was not as cordial as the first. Dukes was even more tense than the day before.

“Christ, Fisk.”

“I know. I think we need to brief ICE, Customs, State, DEA, maybe Carlisle at the UN. Along with the Mexican contingent, of course.”

Dukes looked at Garza. “This guy Virgilio, why didn’t he register with us coming in?”

Fisk intervened. “Let’s work that out after we find him, okay?”

Dukes backed off after a moment, raising his hands, conceding the point. “We will get into it later, though,” he said to Garza. “We are, after all, the world’s premier agency at protecting government representatives. I get national pride and all, but . . .”

“Dukes,” said Fisk.

“All right, all right. Let’s get your man back, and let’s protect your boss, Señor Presidente.”

Fisk knew why some said that the Secret Service was difficult to deal with. They were very smart and hard-nosed, but by the nature of their mission, they also tended to be myopic and high-handed. If you weren’t part of the solution, well, you were part of the problem—that kind of thinking.

Garza was not intimidated by Dukes. “My sole priority is to protect the president of Mexico,” she said coolly.

Dukes said, “All the stuff we have on this Chuparosa is related to drug gangs. You’re convinced he’s a legit threat?”

“Entirely convinced,” she said. “Based upon my examination of the corpses from Rockaway Beach, as well as certain information which is confidential to my agency. It is my belief that an attempt on the life of President Vargas will be attempted while he is in New York, and I further believe that Virgilio’s disappearance is connected to that attempt.”

Dukes said, “What is Virgilio’s real name?”

Garza shook her head. “I cannot see how that is a concern right now.”

Dukes smiled. “That’s exactly the attitude I don’t want, Comandante. Certain information which is confidential to your agency? I trust you will reveal the pertinent aspect of that information so as to make it possible for us to incorporate specific and credible threats into our planning scenarios?”

Fisk knew that her credible information consisted of a bloodstained piece of paper clipped from a newspaper.

“Not at this time,” she said.

“Not at this time.” Agent Dukes gave her a strained smile. Fisk could see the wheels turning in Dukes’s head. He had no dog in the turf battle over the crime scene in Queens, and no reason to doubt her suspicions about the missing Virgilio, but he suspected that Garza’s reticence was part of an attempt by the Mexican government to cover up some potentially damaging or embarrassing news about the murder of a Mexican spy operating in the United States.

Dukes’s dilemma was clear. If Garza was bringing him a bogus assassination plot, it would create a vast amount of work for him—work which could potentially make it difficult for him to fulfill his duty to protect the dozens of other world leaders on hand, never mind the heads of the United States government. On the other hand, if he failed to properly prepare for a legitimate threat, he would be committing career suicide.