Dammit, Fisk thought. I’m going to have to do this alone.

CHAPTER 62

Fisk parked two blocks away. He jumped out and popped his trunk, pulling the Remington 870 shotgun from the bracket inside. He checked to make sure it was fully loaded, then filled the elastic cartridge carrier on the stock with another ten rounds of buckshot.

He pulled on his ballistic vest, did the straps, then slipped on a blue Windbreaker over that. It read NYPD on the back in bold yellow letters. If and when the SWAT team arrived, he hoped that and the badge in his belt carrier would be enough.

He slammed the trunk shut. A woman walked by him, carrying a string grocery bag, looking at him nervously, speeding up as she hit the corner and turned away.

Fisk’s heart was beating rapidly. He started down the sidewalk with the shotgun held out in front of him with both hands.

CHAPTER 63

Cecilia Garza did not check her messages until President Vargas was safely away from the podium and back in the clutches of his security detail. Two persons had been intercepted in the crowd, one suspicious man with a backpack and another wearing a hoodie in the hot midday sun. Neither turned out to be any threat.

The text from Fisk was vague and contained misspellings. That alone spoke to its immediacy. Did he have a lead on the Mexican prostitute who had pointed out Virgilio to Chuparosa? She found the address. She tried to call Fisk, but it went right to voice mail.

Vargas was moving back to the hotel soon. She did not know what to do.

CHAPTER 64

Fisk jogged down the sidewalk toward the red garage. He could see the camera mounted on the building above it, but he was not in range yet. Trying the garage door was a third option at best, and going in through the door Thring had entered was a suicidal second. So he looked for a better first option.

Cutting around the building before it led to a side door up a flight of four rusted stairs. It was locked, of course, but the door had a little give against his hip, so he brought the butt of the shotgun down on the handle. It broke, and he kicked in the door.

Abandoned. Or at least emptied, awaiting a new tenant. Concrete dust lay on the floor, a file cabinet on its side. Through that room and down a hall, he found another exit door. Through the window he could see his target building. There was a bulkhead secured with a chain and lock.

Fisk rushed back through the rooms looking for anything heavy he could use. He found a length of post pipe and picked it up. He only had one shot at this, two at the most.

He rushed back to the exit and unlocked the door, opening it to daylight. He hopped off the stairs quickly and crouch-ran to the bulkhead, looking up at the building for windows. There were none. He heard nothing from inside.

He set down his shotgun and slid the chain so that the lock was fully exposed. He could not hope to break the lock, but thought the force of the blow might pull off one or both of the bulkhead handles.

He reared back and swung. The TRONGG sound echoed, and he saw the handles bend.

He gave it another full swing without taking time to think about it—TRONGG—and the handles popped off, one bolt each.

He pulled off the chain, nervously checking both ways, waiting for someone to come upon him. A dog barked close by, as near as the next building over.

He grasped the half-removed handles and only then wondered what he would do if the doors were locked from inside. The padlock outside seemed to throw that into doubt, however, and when he pulled . . .

. . . the door opened with a sick groan.

Cement stairs coated with dust and dead bugs, leading to another door—its lock plate broken.

Fisk thumbed the flashlight button on the fore grip of his 870 and pushed the door open.

CHAPTER 65

The man known as Chuparosa was upstairs watching a baseball game soundlessly on a laptop computer when he heard the twin clangs.

Watching baseball helped him to focus. He was dressed in his black pants and tuxedo shirt, his bow tie ends dangling from his winged collar. It was a recording of an interleague game from August. The Yankees were playing the Braves in Atlanta, so there was no designated hitter. The Mexican leagues had adopted the DH at more or less the same time as the American League, and Chuparosa did not understand the reason behind splitting Major League Baseball down the middle. The game was improved by the designated hitter rule—it was a fact!

Fortunately the Yankees were up 3–1 in the seventh. Chuparosa’s uncle, the one who raised him, had always revered the Yankees organization as the greatest sports franchise in the world. Chuparosa hated his uncle unreservedly, but agreed with him in this thing only. His ball cap sat atop the table next to the computer, between it and a copy of H Para Hombres magazine with a picture of an almost naked Ninel Conde on the cover.

The noise was so startling and so loud, so obvious, he immediately dismissed it as the product of a nearby worker. But nothing could be left to chance.

Tomás Calibri came running into the room, buttoning up his trousers, the sound of the flushing toilet coming through the bathroom door.

“What is that, patrón?”

“Find out,” said Chuparosa.

Calibri reached for the silenced MP5 submachine gun standing by the door.

Chuparosa said, “We are just a few hours away from glory. Do not take any chances.”

CHAPTER 66

The flashlight mounted on Fisk’s Remington 870 was a recently purchased SureFire—incredibly powerful, but it gobbled batteries at an outrageous rate.

Inside the broken door to the basement, Fisk briefly swept the dark room, making certain no one was there to shoot him as he silhouetted himself in the doorway. Then he thumbed the flashlight off again. He did not want to go dark-blind. Nor did he want to tip off his location.

The noise of his entry had surely alerted anyone inside the warehouse.

He moved left, along a narrow walkway, cutting quickly through the blackness, ears straining.

Footsteps, above. He switched his light on again, directing it at the ceiling. Heart pine over massive old wooden beams. The creaks were farther away than that. A second floor above him.

He moved quickly down the hallway—too quickly, misjudging the end of the hall and bumping into the wall so abruptly he saw stars. He stopped, shaking it off. He turned right. He blinked the SureFire on and then off again.

Along the wide side of the room stood a series of unlabeled doors. As many as eight.

He aimed the light down, low to the ground, minimizing its illumination, and hurried across the gritty cement floor to the first door.

He put his hand on the knob but did not turn it. “Hello?” he whispered, remembering Thring’s description of the room the hooker had been locked inside.

“Come in,” said a female voice, barely audible, trembling.

Fisk tried the door, shotgun muzzle up. The knob turned. The door only locked from the inside, to keep its occupant from escaping. The flashlight blinded the young girl inside, who was no older than fifteen, sitting naked on a bare cot next to a chair with folded bedsheets stacked upon it.

With one thin arm, she blocked her eyes. With the other she attempted to cover her small breasts.